Enhancement of solvent uptake in porous PVDF nanofibers derived by a water-mediated electrospinning technique

The effect of a N,N-dimethylformamide(DMF)/acetone solvent system(3:7,4:6,5:5,6:4,7:3)and spinning medium(air and water)on the membrane morphology and the structure-property relationship were investigated.A facile method was optimized to generate a porous,polymer-fiber membrane via the combinative effect of electrospinning and thermally inducing phase separation of the DMF/acetone(4:6)solvent system in a water medium.The attenuated total reflection(ATR)-Fourier transform infrared(FTIR)results showed an increased b-phase compared to the pristine poly(vinylidene fluoride)(PVDF).The XRD and DSC results further confirmed that the co-existing a-and b-phases in the pristine PVDF were converted into a unique b-phase in the electrospun membranes.In addition,the solvent uptake percentage of the DMF/acetone(4:6)solvent system in a water medium(540)is much greater than that in an air medium(320),and over two times better than that of commercial polyethylene(PE)membranes(190).Similarly,the discharge capacity of the PVDF membrane separator prepared with the DMF/acetone(4:6)solvent system in a water medium is higher than that of the air medium.This enhancement of solvent uptake might be due to the interconnected porous morphology present in the water medium.

Fabrication of intra porous PVDF fibers and their applications for heavy metal removal,oil absorption and piezoelectric sensors

Intra porous fibrous membranes have enhanced metal ionic adsorption and oil separation abilities than those of intra nonporous fibrous membrane.In this paper,we prepared highly intra porous fibrous poly(vinylidene fluoride)(PVDF)membranes using an innovated water-mediated electrospinning approach.FTIR-ATR and XRD techniques confirmed the conversion of non-polarα-phase to polarβ-phase in electrospun membranes.The porous fibrous membrane M–16 had adsorbed oil almost 120%and metal adsorption around 15%,12%,5%,13%respectively for Pb^(2+),Cd^(2+),Cu^(2+)and Zn^(2+),which are larger than the counterpart of nonporous M–18.The nonporous fibrous membranes have better peak to peak output voltage(Vp-Vp)2 to 3 times than the porous fibrous membranes(M–16).The results show apparent potential applications in wastewater/oil spill treatment as well as piezoelectric sensors.