Elsevier

Polymer Testing

Volume 83, March 2020, 106310
Polymer Testing

Fluffy Polypropylene–Polyethylene glycol fabrics with branched micro- and nanofibrous structures for rapid liquid transport

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymertesting.2019.106310Get rights and content

Highlights

  • A fluffy polypropylene (PP) / polyethylene-glycol (PEG) micro-nanofibrous fabrics with branched networks was prepared.

  • Introduction of PEG into the PP and increases of die-to-collector were conducive to fluffy branched network being enhanced.

  • Water content, water permeability and water-evaporation rate were used to record the liquid transport capacity.

  • The fluffy branched structure led to high performance moisture properties.

  • Further, this fabric with the excellent mechanical properties exhibited effective water retention capacity that maintain the humidity of a microenvironment.

Abstract

A high liquid-transportation capability is required for high-performance moisture-functional wound-dressing fabrics. However, simultaneously accelerating liquid wetting and penetration aspects remains challenging. Herein, we fabricated a fluffy polypropylene–polyethylene glycol (PP-PEG) fabric with branched micro- and nanofiber via an environmentally friendly and cost-effective melt-blowing technique. The introduction of incompatible PEG reduced the viscosity of the PP melt and decreased the dimension of fibers; thus, a branched micro- and nanofibrous structure was obtained. By incorporating the amount of 15 wt% PEG, the water content of the outer face increased from 70.3% to 270.6%. A fluffy structure in the fabric's thickness direction was achieved by tailoring the die-to-collector distance (DCD) during the melt-blowing process. The porosity increased from 87.1% to 90.1% with the DCD increased from 10 cm to 30 cm, which achieved a vertical penetration velocity of 7.02 cm/s at the water head of 90 mm. Moreover, micro- and nanofibrous morphology with the excellent mechanical properties and fine hydrolytic stability could enhance the water retention capacity that maintain the humidity of a microenvironment. This branched fluffy fabric with fast water-transportation capability is expected to be used in hygienic and medical fabric.

Section snippets

Introductions

The rising demand for thin wound dressings for wet healing promotes the development of fibrous products with efficient liquid-transportation capacity [1,2]. It is well known that liquid-transportation behavior is a complex phenomenon, which involves both horizontal wetting and vertical penetration across the fabrics. According to Darcy's law and Laplace pressure, the structural parameters of the fabric, such as fiber diameter, fiber size distribution, porosity, and fiber orientation, have great

Materials

PP chips with a melt-flow index of 152.5 g/min (6.2 kg, 240 °C) were purchased from Hunan Shengjin New Material (Yueyang, China). PEG powder (molecular weight: 3600–4400) was provided by Jiangsu Haian Petroleum Chemical Factory (Haian, China). A hydrophilic finishing agent with a viscosity of 1030 mPa was purchased from Goulston Technologies (Monroe, NC, USA). All these materials were used as received.

Fabrication of micro- and nanofibrous fabrics

The corresponding micro- and nanosized fluffy fabrics with branched structure were fabricated

Leaf-vein model

The leaf-vein model (Fig. 1b) is a typical branched network (Fig. 1c) obtained from the water-transport system of leaves. The model comprises a network of main veins (first branch) connecting multiple secondary branches (second branch) and ultrafine veins (third branch) [[33], [34], [35]]. The water-transport efficiency in the branched vein network is improved by the structural differences of pulse sequences obeying capillary force, such as vessel diameter and density. Regarding the water

Conclusion

A fluffy PP/PEG micro- and nanofibrous fabric with a branched network was prepared for high-performance moisture capabilities based on the bioinspiration from leaf veins in nature. The branched network morphology of the micro- and nanofibrous fabrics was acquired by introducing an incompatible PEG into the PP during the melt-blowing process. A fluffy structure with porosity ranging from 87.1% to 90.1% was achieved by adjusting the DCD from 10 cm to 30 cm. Benefiting from their branched

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledge

This work was supported by China Scholarship Council (201808410565), National Key R&D Program of China (2017YFB0309100), Key Research Projects of Henan Higher Education Institutions (20A540001), Collaborative Innovation Center of Textile and garment industry, Henan Province (2017CYY005), Henan Key Laboratory of Medical Polymer Materials Technology and Application (1-TR-B-03-190227) and ZhongYuan University of Technology (2018XQG04, K2018QN011).

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