Taylor cone height as a tool to understand properties of electrospun PVDF nanofibers

Formation of a stable Taylor cone is an important phenomenon during electrospinning of nanofibers for controlling nanofiber properties. Optimizing electrospinning process parameters such as solution feed rate, applied electric voltage and tip to mandrel distance, a stable Taylor cone can be achieved and by maneuvering the parameters within a certain range, the height of the cone can be controlled. Here, we study the influence of the process parameters on the height of the Taylor cone and the corresponding nanofibers produced for polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) using dimethylformamide (DMF) as solvent. Characterization of the produced fibers and image analysis confirmed the optimal values as 1 mL/h, 10.8 kV and 10 cm for feed rate, applied voltage and spinning distance, respectively. Observations from the study reveal that contrary to proportional variation of Taylor cone height with nanofiber diameter in case of changing feed rate and applied voltage, the relationship gets inversely proportional when tip to mandrel distance is varied.