Fabrication of styrene–acrylonitrile random copolymer nanofiber membranes from N,N -dimethyl formamide by electrospinning

Abstract

Ultrafine styrene–acrylonitrile random copolymer (SAN) nanofiber-based membranes were produced from N,N-dimethyl formamide solution by electrospinning. The purpose of this study was to find the optimum values of the electrospinning parameters and the influence of major significant parameters on the electrospun fiber morphology and the average fiber diameter (D_avg) and its standard deviation using design of experiment. A backward elimination model for multiple regression analysis was employed to obtain quantitative interactions among selected electrospinning parameters and the final fiber diameter. The dependence of the D_avg and morphology on the critical entanglement concentration was also studied. Morphology of the electrospun nanofiber mats were examined by scanning electron microscopy. D_avg of electrospun SAN fibers increased considerably with increasing solution concentration. Fibers with diameters ranging from 40 to 650 nm were obtained. Analysis of variance was utilized to identify the statistically significant parameters (p < 0.05) and error variance.