Mixed effect of main electrospinning parameters on the β-phase crystallinity of electrospun PVDF nanofibers

Electrospun polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) nanofiber has shown its advantages of producing piezoelectric devices. Although the effect of electrospinning parameters on the formation of β crystalline phase has been investigated, their mixed effect has not been fully understood. In this study, two dependent design of experiments were utilized to systematically control the transformation of crystalline phases by three typical electrospinning parameters, i.e. applied voltage, needle tip diameter and feeding flow rate, and the mixed interaction of these parameters in improving the fraction of β crystalline phase was investigated. The structures and the contents of crystalline phases within PVDF nanofibers were analyzed by Fourier transform infrared spectra and x-ray diffraction patterns. The results of single factorial experiments showed that all of three electrospinning parameters have a significant effect on the formation and fraction of β-phase crystallinity of electrospun PVDF nanofibers. Furthermore, both the fraction and the crystallinity of β phase initially increase and then decrease with an increase of applied voltage, and consistently decrease with the needle-tip diameter. However, the β-phase fraction parabolically increases with the increasing feeding flow rates, whereas its crystallinity linearly deceases. The orthogonal experimental results demonstrated that the mixed effect of three electrospinning parameters is different from that of single parameter on the fraction of β-phase crystalline, and that the feeding flow rates among three parameters have the greatest effect. Taken together, these results suggested a new strategy to improve the β-phase fraction of electrospun PVDF fibers via sequence of priority of electrospinning parameters.