Influence of Salts on the Spinnability of Poly(Ethylene Glycol)

Electrospinning allows producing nanofiber mats from diverse polymers. In “green electrospinning”, aqueous and other non-hazardous solutions are used as spinning solutions, especially for biopolymers. Physical and chemical material properties of the solutions as well as the nanofiber mats can partly be tailored by co-spinning different materials. Especially for smart textile applications, conductive nanofiber mats are of high interest. However, electrospinning from highly conductive solutions is technically impossible. This article thus investigates the influence of different salts on the conductivity of poly(ethylene glycol) solutions and nanofiber mats and gives an estimate for the maximum possible conductivity of an aqueous polymer solution for electrospinning.