1. Effect of annealing-induced interfacial demixing on crystallization of PEO confined in coaxial electrospun nanofibers.
- Author
-
Shu-Fen Zou, Xiao-Shuai Guo, Rui-Yang Wang, Bin Fan, Jun-Ting Xu, and Zhi-Qiang Fan
- Subjects
NANOFIBERS ,CRYSTALLIZATION ,FIBERS ,SEPARATION (Technology) ,ELECTROSPINNING - Abstract
ABSTRACT Glassy polymer nanofibers with spatially confined poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) were fabricated by coaxial electrospinning of PEO with polyacrylonitrile (PAN) or polystyrene. The effect of melt-annealing on the crystallization behavior of the confined PEOs was studied using differential scanning calorimetry. It is found that the crystallization behavior of the confined PEOs varies with annealing temperature ( T
a ), annealing time ( ta ), and molecular weight of PEO. Notably, it is observed that the crystallization temperature ( Tc ) and melting temperature ( Tm ) of PEO increase with prolongation of ta , for PEO600K/PAN and PEO2K/PAN coaxial electrospun fibers. This phenomenon can be interpreted by the annealing-induced demixing at the core-sheath interface. After the coaxial electrospinning, the core and sheath of the PEO/PAN coaxial fibers are partially compatible due to the miscible solvents used for the core and sheath polymers. Upon annealing, demixing occurs at the core-sheath interface, leading to improved crystallizability of PEO. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 45760. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2018
- Full Text
- View/download PDF