Advanced Materials Research Vol 896 (2014) pp 20-23 Online: 2014-02-19

© (2014) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland

doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.896.20

Mass Production of Stacked Styrofoam Nanofibers using a Multinozzle

and Drum Collector Electrospinning System
Muhammad Miftahul Munir1,a, Ade Y. Nuryantini2, Iskandar2,
Tri Suciati3, Khairurrijal2,b.
1
Theoretical High Energy Physics and Instrumentation Research Division,
2
Physics of Electronic Materials Research Division,
Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences,
3
Pharmaceutics Research Division, School of Pharmacy,
Institut Teknologi Bandung,
Jalan Ganesa 10, Bandung 40132, Indonesia
a
miftah@fi.itb.ac.id , bkrijal@fi.itb.ac.id

Keywords: multinozzle, drum collector, electrospinning nanofibers, mass production, styrofoam

Abstract. Electrospinning offers the unique ability to produce fibers with very small diameters
down to a few tens of nanometers and an attractive mechanical appearance as well as the
controllability of morphology, surface and pores structure. However, the main drawback of the
conventional electrospinning technique is its low productivity. In order to produce high yield
nanofibers, the production rate of nanofibers must be improved. The multinozzle and drum collector
electrospinning system was then developed to overcome the problem. The multinozzle sub-system
was used to increase the production rate of nanofibers while the drum collector was utilized to
maintain the uniformity and thickness of stacked nanofibers. A solution prepared by dissolving
waste styrofoam in the mixture of tetrahydrofuran (THF), citronella oil and cajuput oil was the
precursor to produce the stacked styrofoam nanofibers.

Introduction

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) commonly known as styrofoam is usually used for various
purposes as insulation and packaging materials. However, the disposals of waste EPS, plastics, and
polymers pose serious problems, because they are normally not biodegradable. Recently,
environmental and economic concerns have caused much interest in developing new techniques to
solve the EPS and plastics waste problems [1,2]. Landfill and incineration of plastics waste are a
reasonable cheap method, but environmental consideration gives rise to many major problems.
Therefore, alternative methods for plastics, EPS and polymers waste recycling will be required. For
this reason, various effective techniques of recycling waste plastics have been intensively being
developed.
A method of processing EPS and plastics waste through chemical and heating processes has a
disadvantage because it requires high energy consumption. One promising method that can be
employed to overcome this obstacle is electrospinning. Beside low energy consumption, this
electrospinning technique can produce fibers with small size from micron down to nanometer.
Electrospun nanofibers have many applications due to various unique physical properties. For
example, because of high surface to volume ratio, nanofibers have potentially been used for a
variety of applications such as sensors, catalysts and filters. Some researchers have reported that
waste EPS and polystyrene can be recycled into useful nanofibers, which are used in a filtration
application [3,4]. The addition of the electrospun polystyrene nanofibers with diameters of around
600 nm to conventional micron sized fibrous filter media improves the separation efficiency of the
filter media from 68 to 88 % [5].

All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Trans
Tech Publications, www.ttp.net. (ID: 132.239.1.230, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, USA-01/06/15,21:52:48)
 Advanced Materials Research Vol. 896 21

The conventional electrospinning technique has widely been used for producing nanofibers but
still has limitations due to very low production rate [6]. To overcome this problem, we developed a
multinozzle and drum collector electrospinning system. The production rate of nanofibers was
increased by the use of multi nozzles. Meanwhile, the drum collector was utilized to maintain the
uniformity and thickness of stacked nanofibers. The stacked styrofoam nanofibers were produced
from a precursor solution prepared by dissolving the waste styrofoam in the mixture of
tetrahydrofuran (THF), citronella oil and cajuput oil. It is expected that the electrospun styrofoam
will reduce the impact of environmental pollution of the waste styrofoam and increase its added
value due to its various applications.

Experimental
The experimental apparatus for producing stacked EPS nanofibers is schematically shown in Fig.
1. The detailed experimental procedures used to produce styrofoam fibers are as follows. The
styrofoam fibers were electrospun from a precursor solution composed of 2 g of EPS dissolved in a
mixture of 4 g of tetrahydrofuran (THF), 3 g of cajuput oil and 1 g of citronella oil. The precursor
solution was then vigorously mixed at room temperature until a transparent solution was obtained.
The precursor solution was then ejected into the multinozzle sub-system made of a stainless steel
bar with 6 stainless steel needles with an inner diameter of 0.8 mm. The solution was fed through
the needle using a syringe pump (Harvard Apparatus) at a flow rate of 0.6 ml/h. The needle was
connected to a high-voltage power supply (Matsusada) with a DC voltage up to 20 kV. The fibers
produced using this procedure were collected electrostatically on the aluminum foil-covered drum
collector that was placed 10 cm from the tips of the multinozzle. Morphology of the prepared fibers
was observed by a scanning electron microscope (SEM).

charged solution

Figure 1. Schematic illustration of the multinozzle and drum collector electrospinning system.

Results and Discussion

Figure 2(a) shows stacked styrofoam nanofibers produced by the developed multi-nozzle and
drum collector electrospinning system. Uniform stacked styrofoam nanofibers were produced in a
shorter time than those obtained by the conventional electrospinning system. The photograph of
cone jet shape produced by the developed electrospinning system is shown in Fig. 2(b). It is seen
that the solution jet is multijet mode electrospinning. The multijet mode is usually formed from the
cone-jet mode when the electric potential, electric current and the flow rate is changed. Jaworek et
al. reported that the change of cone-jet to multijet mode may be incurred due to the limited speed of
the jet formation as compared with the speed of the solution in the capillary outlet which depends
on the flow rate. The increase in voltage causes an increase in the number of jets to a certain extent
22 Advanced Materials Science and Technology

[7]. On the other hand, the multijet mode implies that the electrospinning process produces more
fibers in a shorter time without sacrificing the fibers quality. It is expected that, by employing the
multinozzle electrospinning in the multijet mode, the mass production of styrofoam nanofibers
could be realized and the added value of the recycled styrofoam would be obtained.

(a) (b)

Figure 2. Photographs of (a) stacked styrofoam nanofibers, (b) multijet mode electrospinning.

Figure 3. SEM images of styrofoam fibers, (a) 200× magnification (b) 2.000× magnification, (c)
3.000× magnification (beaded fibers), and (d) 10.000× magnification.
SEM images of as-prepared fibers membranes are given in Fig. 3. It is clearly shown that fibers
alignments are random and they have beads [Figs. 3(a) and 3(c)]. Similar results were also found
using the conventional electrospinning [8]. Fibers morphology during electrospinning depends on
various factors such as solution viscosity, solvent properties, flow rate, applied voltage, etc. Munir,
et al. have reported that beaded fibers were obtained for medium viscosity solutions and they could
be controlled by changing the processing variables (flow rate, electric current) [9]. Although the
beaded fibers are commonly observed and deemed as defects, they have potential applications for
developing high performance filter media. Yun et al. have compared the filtration performance of
 Advanced Materials Research Vol. 896 23

pure nanofibers, beaded-nanofibers and composite particle/nanofibers and they have discovered that
the beaded-nanofiber filters had the best overall performance (in terms of quality factors) among the
three morphological variants examined [10].

Conclusion
We have developed a new technique for producing massive stacked styrofoam nanofibers using
the multinozzle and drum collector electrospinning system. The styrofoam nanofibers exhibited the
same quality as those produced by conventional electrospinning, but with higher production rate. It
is expected that, by controlling the stacked nanofibers morphologies and high production rate, waste
styrofoam could be recycled and applied for obtaining low cost and high performance filter media.

Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the 2013National Innovation System Research Incentive (No. RT-
2013-1881) from Ministry of Research and Technology and Decentralization Research Grant (the
fiscal year of 2013) from Ministry of Education of the Republic of Indonesia.

References
[1] W. Bajdur , J. Pajaczkowska , B. Makarucha, A. Sulkowska , and W.W. Sulkowski, Effective
polyelectrolytes synthesised from expanded polystyrene wastes, Eur. Polym. J. 38 (2002) 299.
[2] T. Noguchi, Y. Inagaki, M. Miyashita, H. Watanabe, A new recycling system for expanded
polystyrene using a natural solvent. Part 1. A new recycling technique, Packag. Technol. Sci.,
11 (1998) 19.
[3] C. Shin, G. G. Chase, D. H. Reneker, Recycled expanded polystyrene nanofibers applied in
filter media, Colloids Surf., A. 262 (2005) 211-215.
[4] M.J.A. Shirazi, S. Bazgir, M.M.A. Shirazi, S. Ramakrishna, Coalescing filtration of oily
wastewaters: characterization and application of thermal treated, electrospun polystyrene filters,
Desalin. Water Treat. 51 (2013) 1-13
[5] Y. Tacuchi, M. Tanaka, Preparation of microcapsules composed of waste-expanded
polystyrene and paper fiber by semichemical recycle, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 80 (2001) 2662.
[6] M. M. Munir, F. Iskandar, Khairurrijal, K. Okuyama, A constant-current electrospinning
system for production of high quality nanofibers, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79 (2008) 093904.
[7] A. Jaworek and A. Krupa, Classification of the modes of EHD spraying, J. Aerosol Sci., 30
(1999) 873-893,
[8]. J. Zheng, A. He, J. Li, J. Xu, C. C. Han, Studies on the controlled morphology and wettability
of polystyrene surfaces by electrospinning or electrospraying, Polymer, 47 (2006) 7097102
[9]. M. M. Munir, A. B. Suryamas, F. Iskandar and K. Okuyama, Scaling law on particle to fiber
formation during electrospinning, Polymer, 50 (2009) 4935
[10]. K. M. Yun, A. B. Suryamas, F. Iskandar, L. Bao, H. Niinuma and K. Okuyama,
Morphology optimization of polymer nanofiber for applications in aerosol particle filtration,
Sep. Purif. Technol., 75 (2010) 340.
Advanced Materials Science and Technology
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.896

Mass Production of Stacked Styrofoam Nanofibers Using a Multinozzle and Drum Collector
Electrospinning System
10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.896.20

DOI References
[1] W. Bajdur , J. Pajaczkowska , B. Makarucha, A. Sulkowska , and W.W. Sulkowski, Effective
polyelectrolytes synthesised from expanded polystyrene wastes, Eur. Polym. J. 38 (2002) 299.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0014-3057(01)00191-4
[5] Y. Tacuchi, M. Tanaka, Preparation of microcapsules composed of waste-expanded polystyrene and paper
fiber by semichemical recycle, J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 80 (2001) 2662.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/app.1379
[6] M. M. Munir, F. Iskandar, Khairurrijal, K. Okuyama, A constant-current electrospinning system for
production of high quality nanofibers, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 79 (2008) 093904.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.2981699