Study of Air Pressure and Velocity for Solution Blow Spinning of Polyvinylidene Fluoride Nanofibres

Abstract

Solution blow spinning (SBS) is gaining popularity for producing fibres for smart textiles and energy harvesting due to its operational simplicity and high throughput. The whole SBS process is significantly dependent on the characteristics of the attenuation force, i.e., compressed air. Although variation in the fibre morphology with varying air input pressure has been widely investigated, there is no available literature on the experimentally determined flow characteristics. Here, we have experimentally measured and calculated airflow parameters, namely, output air pressure and velocity in the nozzle wake at 12 different pressure values between 1 and 6 bar and 11 different positions (retracted 5 mm to 30 mm) along the centreline. The results obtained in this work will answer many critical questions about optimum protrusion length for the polymer solution syringe and approximate mean fibre diameter for polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) at given output air pressure and velocity. The highest output air pressure and velocity were achieved at a distance of 3–5 mm away from the nozzle wake and should be an ideal location for the apex of the polymer solution syringe. We achieved 250 nm PVDF fibres when output air pressure and velocity were 123 kPa and 387 m/s, respectively.