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Fabrication and Thermal Insulation Properties of Bamboo‐Shaped Polymer Fibers by Selective Solvent Vapor Annealing
Author(s) -
Chiu YuJing,
Chiu HanLun,
Tseng HsiaoFan,
Wu BoHao,
Li JiaWei,
Lu TienChang,
Chen JiunTai
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.201800424
Subject(s) - materials science , polystyrene , bamboo , polymer , composite material , methyl methacrylate , synthetic fiber , electrospinning , solvent , annealing (glass) , chemical engineering , polymerization , fiber , organic chemistry , engineering , chemistry
Fibrillar materials have gained much attention recently because of their unique properties and potential applications. Although many methods have been developed to fabricate materials, it remains challenging to prepare fibrillar materials containing multicomponent materials or even with complex structures. Here, a facile strategy is developed to fabricate bamboo‐shaped fibers by treating electrospun polymer core‐shell fibers with solvent vapor annealing. Electrospun polystyrene (PS)/poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) core‐shell fibers are first prepared by electrospinning PS/PMMA blend solutions via a phase separation process. When the PS/PMMA core‐shell fibers are annealed with the vapor of cyclohexane, which swells and delocalizes the PS domains selectively, the fibers transform into bamboo‐shaped structures. The bamboo‐shaped structures can be further examined by swelling and delocalizing the PMMA domains selectively, revealing the undulated PS structures. The thermal insulation properties of the fibers with bamboo‐shaped structures are observed to be enhanced compared with the original polymer core‐shell fibers.