Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
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Electrospinning of Cellulose: Process and
Applications
Raghavan Prasanth
*,
1,2,4
, Shubha Nageswaran
2
, Vijay Kumar h
akur
3
and Jou-Hyeon Ahn
4
1
Department of Material Science and NanoEngineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas , U.S.A.
2
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, , Singapore
3
School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, Washington State University, Pullman,
Washington, U.S.A.
4
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Engineering Research Institute,
Gyeongsang National University, Jinju, Republic of Korea
Abstract
Cellulose is a naturally occurring polymer which is abundant and easily biodegradable. h ese
properties make cellulose i bers useful for a wide range of applications such as i lteration, arti-
i cial tissue/skin, protective clothing, etc. However, processing of cellulose is restricted by its
limited solubility in common solvents and its inability to melt because of its numerous inter-
molecular and intramolecular hydrogen bonding. Electrospinning is one of the most common
methods used for the synthesis of cellulose nanoi bers. Electrostatic i ber spinning, or “electro-
spinning,” is a novel process for forming i bers with submicron scale diameters. In electrospin-
ning, a high voltage electric i eld is applied to the polymer solution that l ows out of the needle
tip and the i bers are collected on a grounded target plate. h e present chapter highlights the
current state-of-the-art synthesis of nanoi ber mats of cellulose by elctrospinning in connection
with process parameters and their inl uence on the properties of the i bers. Also discussed are
the versatile industrial applications of those nonwoven i ber mats .
Keywords:
Natural polymer, electrospinning, nanoi ber, nonwowen membranes, nanoi ber
mats, composite i bers, cellulose processing, manmade i ber, room temperature ionic liquids
12.1
Cellulosic Fibers
Cellulose is a polysaccharide made up of repeating 1, 4-β-hydroglucose units connected
to each other by β-ether linkages and is the most abundant natural biopolymer in the
world. Cellulosic i bers are broadly dei ned as i bers from plants or plant-based materi-
als which contain cellulose and is drawn out into i bers for several applications. h e long
linear chains of cellulose permit the hydroxyl functional groups on each hydro-glucose
