Needleless electrospinning of PEO nanofiber mats

Polyethylene glycol (PEG) is used in a variety of applications, from medicine and pharmaceutics to green wood stabilization to skin creams and toothpaste. PEG is often used as coating or supplement for fibres created from other materials or spun as composite fibre in combination with other materials, such as cellulose, collagen or PVDF. However, reports about spinning of pure PEG fibres are scarce. This is why in a recent project the possibilities of spinning nano fibres from PEG were examined. Using the needleless electrospinning machine “NanoSpider Lab” (Elmarco), we produced mats of different thicknesses from nano fibres with diameters between 200 and 800 nm. One of the most important parameters for the ability of the polymer to create nano fibres is the chain length, given by the molecular weight. Thus, our investigation included PEG with molecular weights between 40,000 daltons and 2,000,000 daltons, i.e. PEO 40,000 to PEO 2,000,000. It could be shown that high molecular weights did not necessarily result in the densest and most homogenous fiber mats, but the maximum possible polymer concentration influenced the results as well. The fiber mats resulting from different spinning solutions for maximum and minimum electrode distances were examined using a confocal laser scanning microscope, showing that a middle molecular weight combined with high polymer concentration and small electrode distance creates ideal nanofiber mats.