title: Solvent vapor annealing: an efficient approach for inscribing secondary nanostructures onto electrospun fibers.
abstract: Solvent vapor annealing (SVA) is originally developed to attain equilibrium nanostructures from microphase-separated block polymer thin films. Interestingly, by carefully choosing a solvent vapor that can selectively mobilize the amorphous chains of a semicrystalline polymer while preserving the integrity of its crystalline structure, this study demonstrates that the SVA method can also be utilized to introduce hierarchical structures onto semicrystalline polymer-based materials. This study on electrospun poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) fibers clearly shows that acetone, a poor solvent for PCL, can effectively delocalize the amorphous chains and redeposit them onto the pre-existing crystal edges, giving rise to secondary nanostructures inscribed onto the PCL fibers. In the past decade, various fiber fabrication methods and numerous fiber products are reported. The easy one-step approach reported here provides new insight into the design and fabrication of structurally hierarchical polymeric materials.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Science of Advanced Materials Doctoral Program, Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, MI, 48859, USA.
authors.forename: Jianzhao
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Adam J P
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Bauer
authors.forename: Bingbing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D002152:Calorimetry, Differential Scanning; D005740:Gases / Q000737:chemistry*; D049329:Nanostructures / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D011091:Polyesters / Q000737:chemistry; D012997:Solvents / Q000737:chemistry*; D044366:Transition Temperature
chemical_list: D005740:Gases; D011091:Polyesters; D012997:Solvents; C016240:polycaprolactone
keywords: electrospinning; poly(ε-caprolactone); secondary nanostructures; solvent vapor annealing