Simultaneous electrospinning of two polymer solutions in a side-by-side approach to produce bicomponent fibers

Bicomponent fibers, in the range of 100 nm to a few microns, of miscible poly(vinylchloride)/segmented polyurethane (PVC/Estane (R)) and immiscible poly(vinyl chloride)/poly(vinylidienefluoride) (PVC/PVDF) were produced respectively by electrospinning two polymer solutions in a side-by-side approach. For each of the pairs investigated, PVC/Estane (R) and PVC/PVDF, energy dispersive spectroscopy was utilized to identify the respective components by detecting the signal corresponding to chlorine, oxygen and fluorine from PVC, Estane (R) and PVDF respectively. The ratio of the peak intensities of Cl to O in PVC/Estane (R) and Cl to F in PVC/PVDF were found to vary along the length of the fibers. The ratio of the peak intensities corresponding to Cl and O in the miscible PVC/Estane (R) was calibrated to the actual wt% of Estane (R). The strength of this methodology is to effectively electrospun immiscible and miscible polymer pairs to yield submicron bicomponent fibers that are expected to exhibit a combination of properties from each of its constituent components.