Influence of Solution and Spinning Parameters on Nanofiber Mat Creation of Poly(ethylene oxide) by Needleless Electrospinningpinning

Electrospinning allows producing fine polymer fibers with diameters in the range of several hundred nanometers up to some micrometers. While a large amount of polymers necessitates spinning either from melt or from solutions which are hazardous to health and environment, biopolymers and some other materials are water-soluble and thus can be spun from pure water or similar uncritical (i.e. non-toxic, non-hazardous) solutions. Electrospinning from aqueous solutions, however, is from the technological point of view often more complicated than using other solvents, since water evaporates slower and requires careful designing of the spinning process parameters. This article gives an overview of the influence of spinning and material parameters on nanomats produced from poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO, also known as poly(ethylene glycol), PEG), depicting which parameters are suitable for needleless electrospinning, opposite to parameters found in the literature for nanospinning with a needle.