Fabrication and Characterization of PMMA/Carbon Electro Spun Nanofibers in Two Different Solvents

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) nanofibers have recently found numerous attractive applications due primarily to their high surface area to volume ratio. In literature, the carbon black has not been used before in the preparation of electro spun PMMA nanofibers. In this present work, the production on PMMA/carbon black (PMMA/CB) nanofibers produced by electrospinning technique is the field of interest. The effect of solvent type on the produced PMMA and PMMA/CB nanofibers were investigated. The solvents used for preparing the PMMA solutions for the electrospinning process were dichloromethane (DCM) and chloroform. The criteria used for the evaluation of the solvents and the carbon black effects were the nanofiber morphology and the thermal properties. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the effect of the solvents and carbon black on the surface morphology of the fibers. The differences in the structure affect the thermal properties of the nanofibers as indicated by DSC and TGA.