Electrospinning Nafion nanofibers
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abstract
The anionic polyelectrolyte Nafion has been widely used as a proton exchange membrane in fuel cells. Applications for Nafion include electrochemical devices, chlori-alkali production, metal-ion recovery, water electrolysis, batteries, sensors, and super-acid catalysts. The electrospinning performance and solution properties of Nafion and its blend with another polyelectrolyte, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA), were studied. Attempts to electrospin pure Nafion at various polymer concentrations, solvents, neutralization, and electrospinning conditions led to electrospraying rather than electrospinning. A polymer solution blend of Nafion and PAA resulted in beaded fibers at 8 wt % PAA and smooth electrospinning above 12 wt % PAA. Fiber sizes of the blend increased from 90 to 600 nm with increasing PAA content. The addition of PAA to Nafion resulted in increased viscosity, suppressed aggregate formation, and ionic interactions between the sulfonic acid groups in Nafion and the carboxylic acid groups in PAA suggesting enhanced polymer chain entanglement. This is an abstract of a paper presented at the AIChE Annual Meeting (Salt Lake City, UT 11/4-9/2007).
