Electrospinning of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers using strain-hardening spinning solutions

The electrospinning of polyacrylonitrile (PAN) fibers from strain-hardening PAN solutions was studied. The strain-hardening PAN electrospinning solutions were prepared by adding ultrahigh-molecular-weight PAN (UHMWPAN) into medium-molecular-weight PAN (MMWPAN) solutions. The strain-hardening behavior of the solutions was evidenced by the CaBER extensional rheological tests. In electrospinning of PAN nanofibers, the solutions containing UHMWPAN were found to be stable when large electric field intensity was applied at a constant source-target distance, different from the case that a solution without UHMWPAN was used. PAN nanofibers with smaller diameter (270 nm compared with 496 nm for the nanofibers containing no UHMWPAN) could be electrospun from the strain-hardening solutions at larger electric field intensity and no beaded fibers were observed. The results of X-ray diffraction (XRD) and mechanical tests showed that the crystallinity, crystal orientation and mechanical performance of electrospun PAN nanofibers were improved with the increase of electric field intensity.