Needleless electrospinning of PAN nanofibre mats

Polyacrylonitrile (PAN) is one of the few waterproof polymers that can be spun from relatively safe solvents, facilitating the use of PAN nanofi bre mats in diverse medical and biological applications, such as tissue engineering and cell growth promotion. PAN, on the other hand, is signifi cantly harder to use in electrospinning than polyethylene glycol and other water-soluble biopolymers. In our recent study, we thus varied spinning and material parameters for PAN dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and studied spinnability, as well as the resulting nanofi bre mat morphologies, using a “Nanospider Lab” needleless electrospinning machine. The results were examined using confocal laser scanning microscopy and atomic force microscopy. On the one hand, the images show that the relative humidity in the chamber plays a signifi cant role: excessively high values may cause undesired fi bre connections between oppositely charged parts of the Nanospider, creating cotton-candy-like structures that impede the free fl ow of fi bres to the substrate and thus the creation of the desired nanofi bre mat. On the other hand, the PAN concentration in the spinning solution is crucial: similar to the electrospinning of other (bio-)polymers, no fi bres are formed if the polymer concentration is too low. Third, the PAN material itself aff ects the nanofi bre creation process, illustrating that not every PAN is ideal for electrospinning. Keywords: polyacrylonitrile, electrospinning, nanospinning, nanofi bre mat, spinning parameters.