Converting of Bulk Polymers Into Nanosized Materials With Controlled Nanomorphology

Abstract

The peculiarities of nanomaterials arise mainly from their sizes and for this reason the search of methods for their preparation is of increasing importance. For polymers the most common method is electrospinning but the final nanofibrillar non-woven textile has limited applications. The concept of nanofibrillar composites solves the same problem being free from the disadvantages of the electrospinning. Starting from blend of non-miscible polymers after extrusion and cold drawing, followed by extraction of the dominating component, nanofibrils (of 50–250 nm thickness) of the minor component can be separated. These neat nanofibrils can be used as scaffolds in tissue engineering, micro- and nanofilters in industry, as starting materials for single polymer composites, and others. They are obtained if H-bonding between blend partners is missing. In the opposite case the nanomorphology represents a nanofibrillar nanoporous 3-D network. In this way, H-bonding is a tool for governing the final morphology using water as the only solvent.

Keywords:

• Hydrogen bonding
• nanofibrils
• nanomorphology
• networks
• polymer nanomaterials

Notes

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