Abstract:

Electrospinning represents a low cost technique applied in the production of micro- and nano-fibres. The use of poly(vinyl alcohol) as supporting matrix in aqueous solution for fibre deposition introduces important advantages related with drug release (based on the low toxicity of polymer). On the other side, imperfections of resulting fibres (bead formation) represents an impediment to be circumvented. The introduction of non ionic surfactant (triton X-100) circumvents bead formation and improves the homogeneity of fibre, as verified in the analysis of thermal, structural and morphological properties of PVA net. The results indicate that minimal dispersion of triton X-100 in solution (in the order of 1 wt%) affects the circularity of beads, while at 10 wt% a reduction in the defect concentration in the order of five times is verified with a reasonable reduction in the diameter of the remaining defects and improvement in the regularity of fibres.