Fabrication and characterization of polymer microfiber by using cotton candy machine
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Date
2019-07
Authors
Nur Alia Affiza Binti Abdullah
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Abstract
In this study, it was aimed to investigate the effect of collector dimension and
Polylactic Acid/Polyethylene Glycol (PLA/PEG) blend on the mechanical and
morphology properties of polymer microfiber. Polylactic acid (PLA) were plasticized
with Polyethylene glycol (PEG) at various concentration of PEG at 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40
wt% prepared by using cotton candy machine with three different collector design to
produce microfiber which design A with 5 cm width, design B with 4 cm width and
design C with 1.5 cm diameter. Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) were conducted on
each types of blend system to determine their chemical structure. Thermal properties of
the PLA/PEG microfiber also have been investigated by using Differential Scanning
Calorimetry (DSC) to determine the melting temperature (Tm), cold crystallization
temperature (Tcc) and glass transition temperature (Tg). Mechanical properties was
measured using Texture Analyser machine while density were done using density
balance at room temperature and thickness also were taken by using thickness gauge for
all samples. Results showed that, microfiber collected by design C has a higher tensile
strength but lower elongation at break. This was due to the close packed and increased
in thickness. Microfiber with higher composition of PEG have a lower mechanical
properties for all collector design due to incorporation of PEG to the blend. For SEM
test, it can be observed that the pore sizes and fiber diameter decreases from collector
design A to C. This was due to the distribution space for the microfiber reduced. The
PLA/PEG blend reduced the pores sizes and fiber diameter for all collector design.