Electrospinning

Electrospinning under refers to the production of very thin fibers usually from polymer solutions by treatment in an electric field.

Here the polymer solution is metered at one electrode and discharged through the electric field of the electrode and accelerated. The polymer solution is broken in a complex process in small and very small fibers and webs, which finally deposited on the counter electrode as a kind of non-woven. In the process typically arise fibers with diameters less than 1000 nm, so the products are referred to as nanofibers (although the definition, strictly speaking, a fiber diameter of less than 100 nm requires ). The result of electrospinning is hardly predictable. The desired target product is therefore empirically achieved by a tedious optimization of the parameters. Charge density, viscosity and surface tension of the polymer solution to have a significant impact on the morphology of the fibers and their diameter.

The method is suitable not productive and more for specialty products. Applications of nanofibers are so far mainly in the field of filtration processes for fine dust and the like, but are more diverse applications ranging in the medical in the discussion.