Effect of Electrospinning Parameters on the Properties of Polyamic Acid/Lignin Nanofibers

Electrospinning is a versatile technique that uses a high-voltage electric field to continuously produce microand nanoscale fibers from polymer solutions.The key electrospinning parameters can be adjusted to control the morphologies, diameters, and porosities of the resulting fibers.Herein, electrospinning is performed using a spinning dope containing polyamide and lignin in a 9:1 weight ratio with a viscosity of 17,944 cP.The effects of tip-to-collector distance (TCD) and applied voltage on the fiber morphology and diameter uniformity are investigated.Scanning electron microscopy images revealed that increasing the applied voltage and TCD resulted in the reduction of the fiber diameter.At a voltage of 16 kV and TCD of 18 cm, the smallest average fiber diameter of 319 nm and most uniform fibers were obtained, with the lowest coefficient of variation (18.4%).These parameters considerably impacted the fiber diameter.Thus, uniform nanofibers can be fabricated from polyamic acid/lignin systems by appropriately optimizing the yields of electrospinning parameters.This method can be used for the fabrication of biomass-derived polyimide nanomaterials.