Fabrication of Ultrafine PPS Fibers with High Strength and Tenacity via Melt Electrospinning

Electrospinning (e-spinning) is an emerging technique to prepare ultrafine fibers. Polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) is a high-performance resin which does not dissolve in any solvent at room temperature. Commercial PPS fibers are produced mainly by meltblown or spunbonded process to give fibers ~20 μm in diameter. In this research, an in-house designed melt electrospinning device was used to fabricate ultrafine PPS fibers, and the e-spinning operation conducted under inert gas to keep PPS fibers from oxidizing. Under the optimum e-spinning conditions (3 mm of nozzle diameter, 30 kV of electrostatic voltage, and 9.5 cm of tip-to-collector distance), the as-spun fibers were less than 8.0 μm in diameter. After characterization, the resultant PPS fibers showed uniform diameter and structural stability. Compared with commercial PPS staple fibers, the obtained fibers had a cold crystallization peak and 10 times higher storage modulus, thereby offering better tensile tenacity and more than 400% elongation at break.