Electrospinning of Light-emitting Fibers from a Tertiary Blend Solution of an Inert Polymer and Two Conjugated Polymers
Sutheerat Changsarn [a,b], James D. Mendez [c], Christoph Weder*[c], Toemsak Srikhirin [d], and Pit* Author for corresponding; e-mail address: * christoph.weder@case.edu, ** pitt.s@chula.ac.th
Volume: Vol.38 No.2 (APRIL 2011)
Research Article
DOI:
Received: 14 October 2010, Revised: -, Accepted: 29 January 2011, Published: -
Citation: Changsarn S., Mendez J.D., Weder C., Srikhirin T. and Pit A., Electrospinning of Light-emitting Fibers from a Tertiary Blend Solution of an Inert Polymer and Two Conjugated Polymers, Chiang Mai Journal of Science, 2011; 38(2): 193-209.
Abstract
Ultra-fine PS/BEH-PF/EHO-OPPE fibers with average diameters ranging from 0.67 to 0.92 μm were successfully prepared by electrospinning a 8.5% (w/v) tertiary blend of PS/BEH-PF/EHO-OPPE (PS/BEH-PF/EHO-OPPE = 7.5:0.5:0.5 w/w/w) in chloroform (CF) with the addition of 8% (v/v) pyridinium formate (PF). Electrospun fibers from binary blends of PS/BEH-PF and PS/EHO-OPPE (PS/BEH-PF or PS/EHO-OPPE = 7.5:1 w/w) were also prepared in the same condition for comparison. Scanning electron microscopy and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy were respectively used to explore morphology and chemical functionality of the electrospun fibers. The optical properties of the as-prepared blend solutions, corresponding electrospun fibers, and annealed fibers at different temperatures were studied by UV-visible and photoluminescence spectroscopy. Upon increasing the annealing temperature, the fibers from the binary blend of PS/BEH-PF showed a much more red shift than those from the tertiary blend of PS/BEH-PF/EHO-OPPE, while the fibers from the binary blend of PS/EHO-OPPE showed a much more blue shift when compared with the pristine fibers. Supposedly, the incorporation of BEH-PF and EHO-OPPE molecules helped to reduce the aggregation occurring from the π−π interaction stacking as the lesser red shift was observed in the fibers from the tertiary blend. Keywords: electrospinning, polymer blend, poly(p-phenylene ethynylene), polyfluorene, optical properties.