Investigation of Nanofiber Breakup in the Melt-Blowing Process

Abstract

Nanofibers definitely hold a great advantage and can be applied in many areas because they have very high specific surface area. Recently, great attention is being paid to fabricate nanofiber nonwoven webs using melt-blowing technology. In this paper, melt-blown nanofibers have been produced by multihole dies using two kinds of commercial polymers under different processing conditions. The average nanofiber diameters achieved were 780 and 810 nm, respectively. The fiber breakup, which was driven by surface tension when fiber diameters approached nanoscale, was investigated. The Rayleigh instability theory for a melt-blowing fiber was introduced and illustrated as the reason for fiber breakup. Both theory and experimental results reveal that the surface tension, polymer viscosity, fiber diameter, and melt-blowing-process conditions, such as air pressure and temperature, significantly influence the fiber breakup. This research gives a useful understanding for the formation of melt-blown nanofibers and provides a general understanding of the limitations for conditions to achieve nanofibers in a commercial melt-blowing process.