One-Step Fabrication of Nanofiber/Nanosphere Composite Membranes by Airflow/Electrostatic Method

A fabrication technology and equipment for nanofiber/nanosphere composite membranes (NNCMs) is proposed and named as the airflow/electrostatic method (AEM). AEM uses both air flow and induced electric field to stretch the jets. The AEM working mechanisms are proposed and verified. The electric field laws of AEM are obtained by finite-element simulation and theoretical deduction. Compared with the airflow method (AM), the average fiber diameter, standard deviation of fiber diameter, and NNCMs, porosity of AEM can be reduced by 38.8%, 71.1%, and 87.3%, respectively. AEM can also overcome the shortcoming of the AM that cannot receive nanospheres. Compared with the electrostatic method (EM), AEM can not only fabricate NNCMs with randomly distributed nanofibers and nanospheres in one step, but also greatly improve the yield. The injection speeds of solution X and solution Y of AEM can be increased by 24 000% and 1920%, respectively, compared with that of EM. The diameters of AEM nanospheres and nanofibers increase with the increase of injection speed of solution X and solution Y, respectively. The distance between needle and receiver has little effect on the diameters of nanofibers and nanospheres. AEM NNCMs with excellent quality and high yield will be widely used in many fields. A novel nanofiber/nanosphere composite membrane (NNCM) fabrication technology named airflow/electrostatic method (AEM) is proposed. The electric field laws and working mechanisms of AEM are studied. The advantages of AEM (compared to electrostatic method and airflow method) are demonstrated. The effects of processes on the NNCMs are studied.image (c) 2024 WILEY-VCH GmbH