Smoothening electrospinning and obtaining high-quality cellulose acetate nanofibers using a modified coaxial process

The present research investigates a modified coaxial process for smoothening electrospinning of cellulose acetate (CA) and obtaining its nanofibers with high quality. With 11 w/v% CA in mixed solvent of acetone and N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc) (v:v, 3:1) as electrospinnable core fluid, different solvents (acetone, DMAc and their mixture) are taken as sheath fluids to conduct the modified process. SEM observations demonstrate that the modified process is effective in retarding the clogging of spinneret for a smooth electrospinning and in obtaining high quality CA nanofibers in terms of structural uniformity, diameters, and their distributions. The mechanism about the influence of sheath fluid on the process and the formation of nanofibers is discussed. The key for the modified coaxial process is the reasonable selection of sheath fluids and a sheath-to-core flow rate ratio matching the drawing process of core CA fluid during the electrospinning. The present paper provides a simple method to implement the modified coaxial process for smoothening the electrospinning and obtaining polymer nanofibers with high quality.