Electrospinning of Ultrafine Poly(1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne) [PTMSP] Fibers: Highly Porous Fibrous Membranes for Volatile Organic Compound Removal

Poly(1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne) [PTMSP] possesses a rigid backbone chain with bulky trimethylsilyl side groups which limit the rotational freedom and provide packing-inefficiency that leads extremely high free volume. PTMSP is a hydrophobic polymer showing solubility in common organic solvents such as chloroform and tetrahydrofuran. Therefore, it can be formed as self-standing dense membrane (film). Hence, PTMSP is widely studied for separation applications owing to these outstanding properties. The aim of this research is to produce self-standing poly(1-trimethylsilyl-1-propyne) [PTMSP] fibrous membrane via electrospinning method to further enhance the application area of PTMSP. Electrospinning was achieved using tetrahydrofuran/tetrachloroethane (1:2 v/v) solvent mixture. Extensive optimization studies were performed to obtain bead-free and uniform ultrafine fibers which were obtained at 3.5% (w/v) polymer concentration with respect to solvent, and beads-on-string morphology was obtained below this con...