Experimental investigation of electrostatic spinning of polylactic acid porous nanofibers

Abstract Porous nanofibers are widely used in the fields of water treatment, sensors, energy storage and biomedicine. In this paper, environmentally friendly polylactic acid (PLA) material was used to achieve controlled fabrication of porous nanofibers using electrostatic spinning technology. Taking fiber diameter and fiber aperture as evaluation indexes, the effects of process parameters on the formation of porous nanofiber were investigated through single-factor experiments, including solution concentration, solvent ratio and feed rate. The results showed that the solution concentration and feed rate were the most important parameters affecting fiber diameter, and the solvent ratio was the most important parameter affecting fiber aperture. The coupling effect of these three parameters was analyzed using response surface experiments and controlled fabrication of porous nanofibers was achieved with diameters ranging from 1.470 to 3.298 μm and apertures ranging from 0.062 to 0.22 μm.