Three-Dimensional Model for Electrospinning Processes in Controlled Gas Counterflow

Abstract

We study the effects of a controlled gas flow on the dynamics of electrified jets in the electrospinning process. The main idea is to model the air drag effects of the gas flow by using a non-linear Langevin-like approach. The model is employed to investigate the dynamics of electrified polymer jets at different conditions of air drag force, showing that a controlled gas counterflow can lead to a decrease of the average diameter of electrospun fibers, and potentially to an improvement of the quality of electrospun products. We probe the influence of air drag effects on the bending instabilities of the jet and on its angular fluctuations during the process. The insights provided by this study might prove useful for the design of future electrospinning experiments and polymer nanofiber materials.

16 pages, 8 figures in J. Phys. Chem. A, Article ASAP, 2016

References in corpus (4)

• Sub-ms dynamics of the instability onset of electrospinning
• JETSPIN: a specific-purpose open-source software for simulations of nanofiber electrospinning
• Different regimes of the uniaxial elongation of electrically charged viscoelastic jets due to dissipative air drag
• Non-linear Langevin model for the early-stage dynamics of electrospinning jets

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Models of polymer solutions in electrified jets and solution blowing
• Entropic Lattice Boltzmann Model for Charged Leaky Dielectric Multiphase Fluids in Electrified Jets
• Effects of Orthogonal Rotating Electric Fields on Electrospinning Process
• Dynamic mesh refinement for discrete models of jet electro-hydrodynamics