Fabrication of Polypropylene Nanofibers from Polypropylene/Polyvinyl Butyral Blend Films Using Laser-Assisted Melt-Electrospinning

Polypropylene (PP) nanofibers, a few hundred nanometers in diameter, are of immense importance in the fiber industry. This article reports the fabrication of delicate PP nanofibers. Polyvinyl butyral (PVB) was added to PP as a blend component, and a nozzle-free melt-electrospinning system with a line-like CO₂ laser melting device was used to manufacture PP nanofibers. We investigated the effect of PVB ratio on fiber diameter. The addition of PVB was found to be potentially very beneficial in PP/PVB blends, resulting in improved PP crystallinity and a steady decrease of fiber diameter with high productivity. The reduction of fiber diameter was attributed to the decline of viscosity, increase of surface adhesion properties, and polarity of blends due to the inclusion of PVB. To produce PP nanofiber, the PVB was removed from PP/PVB blend fibers with an ethanol treatment. A drastic drop of PP fiber diameter followed by fiber splitting was observed after PVB removal. We obtained PP nanofibers with a diameter as low as 181 ± 105 nm from the blend fiber with 90% PVB. Infrared spectroscopy of fibers demonstrated that PP fibers from pure polymer and blends showed the same characteristic peaks. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 60: 362–370, 2019. © 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers