The effect of solvent ratio on polystyrene and nylon 6,6 nanofibers membrane

Abstract

Synthesizing nonofibers with certain physical, chemical and mechanical criteria for different application is highly demanded nowadays. To obtain these properties, field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM), contact angle and tensile strength measurement can be used to characteriz it. Thus, this study is about synthesizing nonofibers using binary solvent system at different volume ratios which can provide information about the properties of the nanofibers. In this project, two polymes were electrospinned i.e Polystyrene (PS) and Nylon 6.6 with DMF/THF and Acetic Acid/Formic Acid two solvent systems respectively. The ratio of the solvent for each polymer were as follows: (50:50, 75:25, 25:75,  100:0 and 0:100). The average size of the three nonofibers membrane for PS is    0.91, 1.32, 1.42, 1.26 and 6.02 µm respectively. For Nylon 6.6 only three membrane were obtained due the insolubility of some of the solvents ratio and the average size were obtained 66.45, 71.77 and 58.96 nm corresponding to the ratios of (50:50), (25:75) and (0:100)  Also, the tensile strength for PS membrane 0.3402, 1.1959, 1.2778, 0.5241 and 1.2069 MPa according to the following ratios; (50:50), (75:25), (25:75), (100:0) and (0:100). Moreover, tensile strength for Nylon 6.6 were 3.7957, 3.4867 and 3.6769 MPa corresponding to the following solvent ratio; (50:50), (25:75) and (0:100). Also the contact angle 124.58 12_°"> , 112.70 12_°"> , 124.78 12_°"> , 112.27 12_°">  and 137.53 12_°">  according to the following sequence; (50:50), (75:25), (75:25), (100:0) and (0:100). Also, the contact angle of Nylon 6.6  with the following ratio (50:50), (25:75) and (0:100) were found to be 42.58 12_°"> , 43.62 12_°">  and 52.53 12_°"> . The effect of the solvent concentration dose play a role in changing the properties of the fiber such as the morphology diameter and contact angle.