This is the third summer that we cannot perform electrospinning on 10 wt.% PAN solution. We have tested all the effective parameters that we think might affect the process. Finally, we hypothesized that the weather may be responsible for the condition: temperature, relative humidity. Temperature is usually kept at room temperature in the lab, but we are not sure about the humidity.
The process seems to be suffering from the high level of humidity because the solvent seems not to be evaporated properly, thus a bridge is created between the tip and the collector. The humidity is the lowest, however, during summer. In fact, not the high but the low level of humidity might affect the process.
The problem was solved by itself after Sep 17 as it was the case for the last two years. From the above graph, it seems that electrospinning is possible if the RH is higher than 65%. Since this post was written on Aug 1, electrospinning is not possible Jul 15 - Sep 15.
 |
| Courtesy: https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-Humidity-perc,istanbul,Turkey |
The process seems to be suffering from the high level of humidity because the solvent seems not to be evaporated properly, thus a bridge is created between the tip and the collector. The humidity is the lowest, however, during summer. In fact, not the high but the low level of humidity might affect the process.
The problem was solved by itself after Sep 17 as it was the case for the last two years. From the above graph, it seems that electrospinning is possible if the RH is higher than 65%. Since this post was written on Aug 1, electrospinning is not possible Jul 15 - Sep 15.