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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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.
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