Solventless electrospinning of ultrathin polycyanoacrylate fibers

Solvent recovery is a big challenge for industrial-level production of ultrathin fibers by solution electrospinning because more than 70 wt% of the precursor solution is volatilizable organic solvent. In this paper, we report an interesting solventless electrospinning technique for the fabrication of poly(ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate)/polymethylmethacrylate (PECA/PMMA) fibers. The spinning solution only contains two components: ethyl-2-cyanoacrylate (ECA) monomer and PMMA, which are nearly all (>90%) electrospun into fibers at room temperature. The fiber solidification mechanism during the electrospinning process could be ascribed to the rapid polymerization of the ECA monomer in the presence of water vapour (specifically hydroxide ions) in the atmosphere, which is quite different from the conventional solvent evaporation in solution electrospinning or the fiber cooling mechanism in melt electrospinning. In addition, the morphology, structure, and influence of temperature and PMMA concentration have also been studied. The results may give some stimulation for developing new ecofriendly electrospinning methods.