The effects of intrinsic parameters on the formation of electrospun polycaprolactone fibre

Abstract

Electrospinning process involved strong deformations of polymer fluid at rapid fibrous structure formation within mili seconds by several influence from the distinctive spinning parameters. This study has been conducted to achieve a desirable flow rate and optimum tip-to-collector needle distance for the electrospinning of polycaprolactone (PCL). For this aim, the morphological structure of fibre spun from 10 wt% PCL solution dissolved in dichloromethane (DCM) at 0.05 – 0.20 ml/min flow rate and 10 – 15 cm tip-to-collector needle range were characterized by FESEM. The results obtained show that average diameter of electrospun PCL fibres decreases with increasing flow rate at any needle to collector distance. In addition, the tip-to-collector needle range at 15 cm produced more beads-on-string fibres compared to 10 cm distance. The fibre thickness is reduced as both of the flow and the distance of needle tip-to-collector increased. All of the obtained electrospun PCL fibres are in non-uniform, long, porous beaded fibrous structure for all flow rate and needle distance tip-to-collector values.