Electro-blow spinning represents a novel and emerging hybridised technology for producing high-quality, large-scale nanofibers. The applied pressure, accompanied by an electric field, functions as a drafting force to generate ultrafine, homogeneous nanofibers. Herein, we utilised a sustainable solvent to produce polylactic acid nanofibers via the electro-blow spinning technique. A parametric study investigating the effect of polymer concentration, pressure, and voltage on the characteristics of the produced nanofibers was thoroughly conducted. The produced nanofibers were tested using scanning electron microscopy, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and tensile test. The findings revealed that air pressure plays a crucial role in the electro-blow spinning process, while introducing electric field enhances the spinnability and stretchability of nanofibers. Increasing the applied pressure and voltage led to finer fibres with improved crystallinity and mechanical strength. However, excessive pressure or voltage can cause jet instability, resulting in defects such as fused or broken fibres. Our study suggests that the most recommended parameters for uniform and high-quality nanofibers are 10 wt%, 5 bar, and 20 kV. Moreover, the polylactic acid nanofibers were further evaluated for air filtration performance using a customised filtration setup to determine their suitability as a facemask material. The results indicated a notably high filtration efficiency, reaching up to 98 %, with a corresponding pressure drop between 137 and 163 Pa. These preliminary findings strongly suggest that produced nanofibers are highly promising candidates for medical textile applications, particularly in the development of facemasks.

中文翻译：

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电吹纺丝参数对聚乳酸纳米纤维特性的影响：迈向高性能生物降解膜的绿色发展


电吹纺丝代表了一种用于生产高质量、大尺寸纳米纤维的新颖且新兴的混合技术。所施加的压力与电场一起充当牵伸力，以生成超细、均匀的纳米纤维。在此，我们利用可持续溶剂通过电吹纺丝技术生产聚乳酸纳米纤维。彻底进行了参数研究，研究了聚合物浓度、压力和电压对所生产的纳米纤维特性的影响。使用扫描电子显微镜、傅里叶变换红外光谱、差示扫描量热法和拉伸测试对所生产的纳米纤维进行了测试。研究结果表明，气压在电吹纺丝过程中起着至关重要的作用，而引入电场则增强了纳米纤维的可纺性和拉伸性。增加施加的压力和电压可以产生更细的纤维，并提高结晶度和机械强度。然而，过高的压力或电压可能会导致喷射不稳定，从而导致纤维熔断或断裂等缺陷。我们的研究表明，对于均匀和高质量的纳米纤维，最推荐的参数是 10 wt%、5 bar 和 20 kV。此外，使用定制的过滤装置进一步评估了聚乳酸纳米纤维的空气过滤性能，以确定其作为口罩材料的适用性。结果表明，过滤效率非常高，高达 98%，相应的压降在 137 至 163 Pa 之间。这些初步研究结果强烈表明，所生产的纳米纤维是医用纺织品应用的极有前景的候选者，特别是在口罩的开发方面。