Nanowerk May 9, 2024
Electrospinning has been applied to produce ceramic fibers using sol gel-based spinning solutions consisting of ceramic precursors, a solvent, and a polymer to control the viscosity of the solution. However, the addition of polymers to the spinning solution makes the process more complex, increases the processing time, and results in porous mechanically weak ceramic fibers. Researchers in the UK developed a coelectrospinning technique, where a nonspinnable sol consisting of only the ceramic precursor(s) and solvent(s) was encapsulated inside a polymeric shell, forming core–shell precursor fibers that were further calcined into ceramic fibers with reduced porosity, decreased surface defects, uniform crystal packing, and controlled diameters. They demonstrated the versatility of their method by applying it to a series of nonspinnable sols and creating high-quality ceramic fibers containing TiO2, ZrO2, SiO2, and Al2O3. The polycrystalline TiO2 fibers possess excellent flexibility and a high Young’s modulus solving the extreme brittleness problem. The single-component ZrO2 fibers exhibited superior Young’s modulus and toughness superior to the counterparts prepared by conventional sol–gel electrospinning. They created ceramic fibers in micro- and nanospring morphologies and examined the formation mechanisms using simulations. According to the researchers their work expands the selection of the electrospinning solution and enables the development of ceramic fibers with more attractive properties… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE
TiO2 fibers and springs electrospun from a nonspinnable dilute sol… Credit:Â ACS Nano 2024, XXXX, XXX, XXX-XXX, May 8, 2024