Interjet distance in needleless melt differential electrospinning with umbellate nozzles

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Melt electrospinning technique has shown great advantages in numerous areas where polymer dissolving, solvent accumulation, or toxicity is a concern in solution electrospinning. However, conventional capillary spinnerets in electrospinning are less productive. In this article, two needleless umbellate nozzles were used based on melt differential method, and the smallest interjet distance of 1.1 mm was observed. Experimental results indicated that the main factors affecting the interjet distance were the electric field strength and melts viscosity. The produced fiber diameter was related to interjet distance directly. Finite element modeling (FEM) showed that umbellate structure determines the intensity of maximum electric field around the rim of nozzles and the resultant interjet distance. This new method enabled the mass production of ultra‐fine fibers using needleless melt electrospinning method when relatively low voltage (less than 65 kV) was loaded on the receive plate.