Electrospinning of PLA and PLA/POSS nanofibers: Use of Taguchi optimization for process parameters

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Abstract
It is known that electrospinning is the most practical technique to obtain unique nanofibrous structures, such as neat PLA (polylactide) and PLA filled with POSS (Polyhedral Oligomeric Silsesquioxane) particles. On the other hand, due to the so many different process parameters to consider, production of these fibers are extremely difficult and time consuming. That is, use of a certain statistical optimization technique in the design of experiments would be necessary. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to determine the optimum electrospinning parameters by applying the Taguchi technique first to neat PLA and then to reveal the applicability of these parameters for the electrospinning of PLA/POSS nanofibers. It was observed that instead of conducting 81 experiments to determine the most significant four optimum process parameters for PLA, use of Taguchi L9 orthogonal array experiment matrix, that is, conducting only nine experiments, reduced time, labor and material consumption considerably. For the smallest electrospun PLA fiber diameter, the optimum parameters determined were; “PLA solution concentration” of 8% w/v, “solution feeding rate” of 1.8 mL/h, “needle‐to‐collector distance” of 18 cm, and “applied voltage” of 15 kV. Moreover, it was generally concluded that these same parameters could be also used for the electrospinning of PLA/POSS nanofibers after addition of only 3 wt% KCl salt into the polymer solution.

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