Study on Needle and Needleless Electrospinning for Nanofibers

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) water solution was electrospun by both needle electrospinning and needleless electrospinning. The electrodes for needless electrospinning were rotary spiral disk and spiral coil made from stainless steel. We found that needleless electrospinning can obtain nanofibers in large-scale, while fiber diameter and diameter distribution were larger when compared to the conventional needle electrospinning. The average diameters of disk electrospun and coil electrospun nanofibers were 441±99nm and 415±103nm respectively. As for needle electrospun nanofibers, the diameters were 393±29nm and 349±25nm when the applied voltage were 10kV and 15kV respectively.