Investigation of the Fiber, Bulk, and Surface Properties of Meltblown and Electrospun Polymeric Fabrics
We measured and compared the properties of meltblown and electrospun fabrics made of nylon and polyurethane (PU). Properties of interest included surface energy/wettability, strength, fiber diameter, and microscopic structure as revealed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). We also report new data on the diameters of electrospun fibers measured from digitized SEM images of electrospun nylon, polyurethane (PU), polyacrylonitrile (PAN), polycaprolactone (PCL), and polycarbonate (PC) fabrics. The electrospinning process produced fibers with diameters in the range from 10 nm to several microns. It was found that the strength per unit areal weight of electrospun nanofiber nylon fabric was up to ten times that of the meltblown material, and for polyurethane (PU) fabric, from 2.5–3 times that of the melt-blown material.