Nanofibers with Surface Porosity

The unique advantage of nanofiber constructs is that they combine high specific surface area with a permeable and easily handled mat structure. 

Science and Technology of Polymer Nanofibers. By Anthony L. Andrady Copyright 2008 John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

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The terms porosity and pore are used in this chapter to mean the features on the nanofiher itself as opposed to the interstitial porosity of mats dealt with in Chapter 5. Note that porous nanofibers (with surface pores on the fiber) are electrospun into porous mats with interstitial pores as well. 

How to control the surface pattern of polymer nanofibers Fortunately, this can be done by a variety of both bottom-up and top-down methods, with good effectiveness. For example, the phase separation related to the rapid evaporation of solvents with low boiling point during electrospinning can be a smart approach to fabricate polymer nanofibers with controlled porosity and... 

The terms pore and porosity are used in this chapter to mean the interstitial porosity associated with a fiber mat, where the pores are defined by a set of nanofibers lying at the periphery of an interstitial volume. This is contrasted with fiber porosity, which refers to porous features that occur on the surface or within individual nanofibers (dealt with in detail in Chapter 9). 

In a recent work, high flux UF membrane was prepared using electrospun nano-flbers of PAN, which was coated with CH solution. The nanofibrous PAN scaffold increased the surface porosity of the membrane, resulting in higher flux with the hydrophilic CH layer (Yoon et al. 2006). In the future, the use of nanofibers made up of CH may help in improving the performance of the subsequently fabricated UF and NF membranes. 

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