Solution blow spinning and obtaining submicrometric fibers of different polymers

Thermoplastic polymers with potential biomedical and electrical applications such as polyethyleneoxide, PEO, polyvinylidene fluoride, PVDF, polyethylene-co-vinyl acetate, EVA were prepared bysolution blow spinning, SBS, looking for the best processing conditions to obtain submicrometricfibers with highest homogeneity in terms of morphology. Fabrication was carried out by a commercialairbrush and a home-made automatic SBS device. The aim of this work was to optimize the SBSprocess for each of the polymer systems to get films in the form of mats formed by submicrometricfibers. In particular, the pressure of the ejecting gas, the feed rate of the polymer solution and theworking distance was considered as the final influencing parameters on the materials morphology.SEM was used as the main technique to evaluate the effect of the processing conditions on the finalmorphology. The different morphologies obtained showed a directly dependence of between themand the processing conditions. Gas pressure, feed rate and working distance have a great influencein the fiber production, fiber diameter, and fiber diameter distribution.Authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Projects MAT2014-59116-C2 (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad); 2012/00130/004 (Fondos de Investigación de Fco. Javier González Benito, política de reinversión de costes generales, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) and 2011/00287/002 (Acción Estratégica en Materiales Compuestos Poliméricos e Interfases, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)