Cocontinuous Cellulose Acetate/Polyurethane
Composite Nanofiber Fabricated Through
Electrospinning
Chunyi Tang,1 Pingping Chen,1 Haiqing Liu1,2,3
1
College of Chemistry and Materials Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou 35007, China
2
Fujian Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials, Fuzhou 350007, China
3
Laboratory of Cellulose and Lignocellulosic Chemistry, Guangzhou Institute of Chemistry,
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China
Cocontinuous cellulose acetate (CA)/polyurethane (PU)
composite nanofibers were obtained through electro-
spinning of partially miscible CA and PU in 2:1 N,N-
dimethylacetamide (DMAc)/acetone mixture solvent.
Their structures, mechanical, and thermal properties
were characterized by scanning electron microscopy
(SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and dif-
ferential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The structures and
morphologies of the nanofibers were affected by com-
ponent ratio in the binary mixtures. PU component not
only facilitated the electrospinning of CA at CA concen-
tration down to 12 wt%, but reinforced the tensile
strength of CA/PU nanofibrous mats, while semirigid
component CA in the composite nanofibers could
greatly improve the rigidity and dimensional stability of
CA/PU nanofibrous mats. In a series of nanofibrous
mats with varied CA/PU composition ratios, CA/PU 20/
80 showed excellent tensile strength and Young’s modu-
lus. The residual product after selective removal of any
one of the components in CA/PU composite nanofibers
by washing with proper solvent maintained the fiber
structure but greatly reduced the fiber size, suggesting
CA/PU composite fibers showed a cocontinuous nano-
fiber structure due to phase separation in the spinning
solution and in the course of electrospinning. POLYM.
ENG. SCI., 48:1296–1303, 2008. ª 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
INTRODUCTION
Electrospinning is a simple and versatile technique in
the generation of continuous ultrafine fibers with diameter
Correspondence to: Haiqing Liu; e-mail: haiqing.liu@gmail.com
Contract grant sponsor: Initiative Fund for the Returned Overseas Chi-
nese Scholar administered by the State Education Ministry and the Key
Project of Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province; contract grant
number: E0620001.
DOI 10.1002/pen.21090
Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com).
V
C 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers
down to submicrometers or even 10s of nanometers [1].
Nanofiber possesses the characteristic features of high
length-to-diameter ratio and specific surface areas, ena-
bling it to be applied for protective clothing, filter, cata-
lyst support, reinforced composite, and tissue engineering
[2]. Recently, there is growing interest in the design and
preparation of novel composite nanofiber with improved
properties, because it may combine the merits of each
component. One type of composite nanofibers reported so
far are prepared by multiple-jet electrospinning [3, 4],
mainly because a cosolvent is hard to be found for each
component. For instance, cellulose acetate (CA)/poly(vi-
nyl alcohol) (PVA) composite nanofiber was generated by
side-by-side electrospinning of CA in 2:1 acetone/dime-
thylacetamide and PVA in water [4]. It was found that the
mechanical properties of the CA nanofibrous mats are sig-
nificantly enhanced with the increasing of PVA component
in the CA/PVA composites [4]. Nevertheless, this type of
composite nanofibrous mat is composed of two kinds of
nanofibers formed by individual pure polymers. Another
type of composite nanofiber is synthesized from electro-
spinning of polymer blends in a cosolvent. Most composite
nanofibers of this type consist of two components. One
component is hard to be electrospun into nanofiber alone
such as chitosan and Bombyx mori silk, and the other is a
good nanofiber-forming polymer such as poly(ethylene ox-
ide) [5–7]. Generally, such nanofibers are of the ‘‘islands-
in-the-sea’’ structure with the former dispersing into the
latter, which is continuous fiber morphology due to phase
separation and fast solvent evaporation during fiber forma-
tion. Selective removal of the dispersed component often
results in nanoporous nanofibers with higher specific sur-
face areas than untreated nanofibers, whereas the removal
of the fiber-forming component would cause complete dis-
integration of the composite nanofiber [8, 9]. With special
design of the spinneret, side-by-side [10] or core-sheath
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008
 SCHEME 1. Treatment procedure of CA/PU nanofiber.
[11] bicomponent polymer nanofibers have been reported
as well. Obviously, none of these bicomponent composite
nanofibers presents a well-blended and cocontinuous fiber
structure within a single nanofiber.
Cocontinuous composite nanofiber is defined as each
component forms fiber structure in the composite. Com-
paring with the composite nanofibers from the side-by-
side electrospinning, the cocontinuous structure enables
the components in the nanofiber to be blended in the
nanolevel, and to interact with each other through molec-
ular forces such as hydrogen bonding. Such structure
would certainly impart new mechanical and thermal prop-
erties for the composite nanofiber. However, little work
on the cocontinuous composite nanofiber has been found
so far [9]. In this work, we aim to prepare cocontinuous
composite nanofibers of CA/PU through electrospinning
their blends in cosolvent N,N-dimethylacetamide (DMAc)/
acetone. Each component alone is readily to form nano-
fiber through electrospinning. CA nanofibers show poor
mechanical property with stress of 1.3 MPa, but good
dimensional stability with strain as small as 0.007% due
to its semirigid chain structure [12, 13]. Moreover, it can
be easily deacetylated to regenerate more biocompatible
and reactive cellulose nanofiber [14]. PU nanofiber exhib-
its excellent tensile strength of over 10 MPa but high
strain of more than 300% [15]. Depending on the struc-
ture, PU nanofibers have been tested in the application
areas of protective clothing [16] and tissue engineering
[17]. CA/PU cocontinuous composite nanofibers are possi-
ble to exhibit excellent mechanical strength and relative
stable dimensionality. To test this assumption, the electro-
spinning of CA/PU is investigated in terms of composi-
tion ratio in the binary mixtures. The structure, morphol-
ogy, mechanical behavior, and thermal property of the
CA/PU composite nanofibers are examined. The structure
of residual nanofibers obtained from selective removal of
one of the components from the CA/PU composite nano-
fiber is characterized.
EXPERIMENTAL
Materials
Cellulose acetate (Mn ¼ 3.0 3 104, acetyl content 39.8
wt%) was from Aldrich Chemical Company. Elastollan
B64D, a polyester-based polyurethane, was purchased
from BASF Company. Both CA and PU can dissolve in
DOI 10.1002/pen
DMAc and 2:1 (v/v) DMAc/acetone. To facilitate their
capabilities in the fiber formation during electrospinning,
the latter was chosen as the cosolvent for CA and PU. All
materials were used as received.
Electrospinning
Precalculated amount of CA and PU was dissolved in
2:1 DMAc/acetone mixture solvent to make CA/PU com-
position ratio of 100/0, 80/20, 60/40, 40/60, 20/80, and 0/
100. The total polymer weight concentrations were 20%
by weight. It was observed that the miscibility of these
two polymers in solutions is poor, because the blend solu-
tions are not completely transparent. The CA/PU spinning
solution was added to a 10-ml syringe attached to a stain-
less needle with an inner diameter of 0.84 mm. An elec-
trode was clamped on the needle and connected to a
power supply. Grounded counter electrode was connected
to collector aluminum foil. All solutions were electrospun
at ambient temperature, flowing rate at 10 ll/min, 10 kV,
and a 20-cm distance between the collector and needle
tip. The products were dried under vacuum at 508C for
5 h to remove any residual solvents.
Selective Removal of One Component from
CA/PU Nanofiber
To remove PU component in the composite nanofiber,
the CA/PU nanofibrous mat was first hydrolyzed in 0.05
M NaOH/ethanol solution to turn CA to cellulose at room
temperature for 24 h. Because cellulose is hard to dissolve
in many solvents, the hydrolyzed fibrous mats were subse-
quently immersed in DMAc for 24 h to dissolve PU com-
ponent while cellulose nanofiber mat was left behind.
Such obtained cellulose nanofibrous mat was further
washed with DMAc three times, acetone two times to
completely remove PU component. The selective removal
of CA component was achieved by immersing CA/PU
nanofibrous mat in acetone for 12 h. After it was washed
with acetone five times, PU nanofiber was remained. The
residual cellulose and PU nanofibrous mats were vacuum
dried at 508C for 10 h. The mass of dried nanofibrous
mat before and after selective removal of CA or PU com-
ponent was measured to calculate the weight loss. Scheme
1 illustrated the preparation and treatment procedure of
CA/PU nanofiber.
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 1297
Characterization
The fiber morphology was examined by scanning elec-
tron microscope (SEM, JEOL JSM-6380LV) and trans-
mission electron microscope (TEM, JEOL JEM-2010).
All samples were sputter-coated with gold before SEM
observation. For TEM measurement, the fibers were dis-
persed ultrasonically in ethanol. The tensile strength of
the fibrous mats was measured on Twin Column testing
machine (LLOYD LR5K) with cross-head speed of 10
mm/min at room temperature. Eight replicates were tested
for each sample, and their average value was given. ATR
was recorded on Thermo-Nicolet 5700 spectrometer. The
thermal properties of the nanofibers were measured on a
differential scanning calorimeter (DSC TA Q200) under
nitrogen atmosphere. Specimen was first heated to 1208C
at a heating rate of 208C/min to eliminate the thermal his-
tory. The second scan was recorded at a heating rate of
108C/min from 2708C to 2708C.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Morphologies and Structures of CA/PU
Composite Nanofibers
The SEM images of CA/PU composite nanofibers are
presented in Fig. 1. CA alone shows beads-on-string mor-
phology (Fig. 1a), with bead size and fiber diameter in
the range of 0.9–2.5 lm and 0.14–0.3 lm, respectively.
This morphology is consistent with that found in a previ-
ous work [13]. The beads formation is caused by insuffi-
cient CA chain entanglement in the solution with low
polymer concentration [18]. Although total polymer con-
centration was kept at 20 wt%, the addition of PU could
facilitate the bead-free nanofiber formation (Fig. 1b–e). In
experiment, it was noticed that the addition of PU greatly
increased the viscosity of the CA/PU blend-spinning solu-
tion, implying that the chain entanglement was enhanced
in the solution. Such enhancement would favor the forma-
tion of less-bead or even no-bead nanofiber. Similar phe-
nomenon was observed in the manufacture of PVC/PU
blend nanofiber. Beaded PVC nanofiber became bead-free
PVC/PU nanofiber with the addition of PU in the spinning
solution while the total polymer concentration was kept
constant at 13 wt% [19]. CA/PU80/20 nanofiber was uni-
form in morphology and size of 360 nm (Fig. 1b). With
further increasing of PU content to 80%, fiber size
increased but with no significant variation from 700 nm
for CA/PU 60/40, 40/60, and 20/80 (Fig. 1g). It is well
known that solvent system is one of the key factors
affecting the electrospinning process and the morphology
of nanofiber. 2:1 DMAc/acetone is a poor solvent system
for the nanofiber formation of CA solutions with concen-
tration less than 25% [13]. The current findings suggest
that mixing PU with CA at actual CA concentration down
to 12 wt% (Fig. 1c) could greatly facilitate the electro-
spinning of CA in this solvent. Bead-free PU nanofiber
1298 POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008
with mean diameter of 900 nm was easily fabricated from
2:1 DMAc/acetone mixture solvent (Fig. 1f). Our work
indicates that DMAC/acetone is also a feasible solvent for
the preparation of PU nanofiber besides the widely used
solvent N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF) or DMF/tetrahy-
drofuran (THF) [15, 19]. Meanwhile, it is interesting to
find that PU fibers adhered together at some bonding sites
(pointed by the arrows in Fig. 1f). Similar observations
have been reported in the preparation of PVC/PU nanofib-
ers [19]. These bonding sites are particularly useful for
the enhancement of mechanical properties for PU nanofi-
brous membrane, which will be discussed in the following
section. Because of high Tb at 1648C, DMAc evaporates
slowly in the short course of fiber traveling to the collec-
tor, resulting in some DMAc remain in the fiber. Given
that the remaining DMAc is not removed in time, PU
fibers are readily to be redissolved and fused together at
some locations. In our research, freshly generated thick
PU nanofibrous mat could transform into film whose mor-
phology is similar to cast-film if it was put in a sealed
container, while it could keep nanofibrous mat morphol-
ogy if it was in an open environment.
Morphologies of CA/PU Composite Nanofibers After
Selective Removal of One Component
To obtain the information on the internal morphology
of composite fiber, that is, how each component distrib-
utes within the composite nanofiber, selective removal of
one component followed by microscopical analysis is an
established very effective technique [9]. Up to now, two
very common distribution morphologies, that is, ‘‘islands-
in-the-sea’’ dispersion [8] and core-sheath [20] have been
reported. We first analyzed the fiber structure of cellulose
nanofiber after the selective removal of PU component.
For CA/PU60/40 and 40/60 nanofibers hydrolyzed in 0.05
M NaOH/EtOH, the residual cellulose/PU fiber morphol-
ogy was kept unchanged though average fiber sizes
decreased dramatically from originally 650 nm and 710
nm to 370 nm and 460 nm, respectively (Fig. 2a and b).
With the further removal of PU component by washing
with DMAc, the morphologies of the resultant cellulose
nanofibers were still preserved very well, but the mean di-
ameter of nanofibers was further reduced to 280 and 320
nm, respectively (Fig. 2c and d). It should be pointed out
that cellulose nanofibers with uniform diameter of less
than 300 nm and defects (beads) free morphology are first
ever synthesized in this work. Cellulose nanofibers from
the deacetylation of CA nanofibers [12] or from direct
electrospinning cellulose/DMAc-LiCl [21] or cellulose/
NMMO [22] often exhibit broad fiber size distribution
and beads defect when average fiber diameter is down to
500 nm.
The mass losses of CA/PU nanofibrous mats after
treatment were listed in Table 1. The actual mass losses
after hydrolysis (data in column 4) were higher than those
of theoretical acetyl content (data in column 2) in the
DOI 10.1002/pen
 FIG. 1. SEM images of CA/PU nanofibers (a) 100/0, (b) 80/20, (c) 60/40, (d) 40/60, (e) 20/80, and (f) 0/
100; (g) diameter of corresponding nanofibrous membranes.

composite nanofibers. However, actual PU loss after treat-
ment of hydrolyzed mat with DMAc was less than that of
theoretical PU content. Considering that the actual total
loss closely matches theoretical loss, we believe that part
of the polyester-based PU is hydrolyzed along with the
deacetylation of CA in NaOH/EtOH solution, and the
deacetylation of CA and PU removal are processed com-
pletely. In another parallel hydrolysis experiment in
NaOH/H2O (values in the last two rows in Table 1), we
found that the actual mass loss is a little bit more than

DOI 10.1002/pen POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 1299

 FIG. 2. Morphologies of CA/PU composite fibers (a) 60/40 and (b) 40/60 hydrolyzed in NaOH/EtOH; (c)
60/40 and (d) 40/60 hydrolyzed in NaOH/EtOH followed by washing with DMAc; (e) 80/20 and (f) 40/60
washed with acetone.

that theoretical acetyl content after hydrolysis, with no results suggest that aq. NaOH has little effect on the hy-
significant hydrolytic degradation of PU. PU is almost drolysis of PU, which is believed to be caused by the
removed in the subsequent treatment with DMAc. These poor penetration of aq. NaOH solution into the hydropho-

TABLE 1. Mass changes of CA/PU nanofibrous membranes after hydrolyzed in NaOH/EtOH or NaOH/H2O and washed in DMAc.

Mass loss after

Cacetyl Theoretical CPU NaOH/EtOH PU loss after Theoretical total Actual total
CA/PU (wt%) (wt%) hydrolysis (wt%) DMAc washing (wt%) mass loss (wt%) mass loss (wt%)

80/20 32 20 39.4 8.3 52 47.7

60/40 24 40 40.9 23.3 64 64.2
40/60 16 60 35.1 41.1 76 76.2
20/80 8 80 36.0 50.0 88 86.0
60/40a 24 40 25.4 35.8 64 61.2
40/60a 16 60 18.4 55.3 76 73.7

a
The values in the last two rows were from hydrolysis in the NaOH/H2O.

1300 POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 DOI 10.1002/pen

TABLE 2. Mass changes of CA/PU nanofibrous membranes after
washed with acetone.
CA/PU Theoretical CA content (wt%) Actual mass loss (wt%)
80/20 80 81.4
60/40 60 59.3
40/60 40 39.0
bic PU nanofiber. In a similar research, it is reported that
alcoholic NaOH is more efficient in the hydrolysis of
hydrophobic CA than aq. NaOH [12]. FTIR results (not
shown) confirm that acetyl groups and PU were com-
pletely removed, and cellulose nanofibers were obtained
after such treatments.
Continuous PU nanofibers were obtained after selective
removal of CA in the composite nanofiber (Fig. 2e and f).
Because of the loss of 80% CA for the acetone-treated
CA/PU80/20 nanofibrous mat, the resultants are still in fi-
brous morphology but they tend to twinning together to
form ‘‘crosslinked’’ fibrous film (Fig. 2e). For treated CA/
PU 40/60, the diameter of the residual PU fiber decreased
from 710 nm to 660 nm after 40% CA was removed (Fig.
2f). This insignificant fiber size reduction should result
from the swelling of PU in acetone. Upon removal of ace-
tone while drying, swelled PU nanofiber tends to collapse
and makes its size look bigger than round morphology.
This phenomenon is also found for some hydrogel nano-
fibers when they are dried from swelled state [23, 24]. It
is also found that the residual PU fibers are distorted
because of its flexible molecular chains and the loss of
support from semirigid CA. The mass losses of CA/PU
composite nanofibrous mats after acetone treatment are
nearly same as the theoretical content of CA in the origi-
nal bicomponent fibers (Table 2), suggesting the complete
removal of CA.
The smooth surface of CA/PU40/60 composite nano-
fiber was clearly demonstrated in TEM image (Fig. 3a).
After the removal of PU, the surface of residual cellulose
nanofiber becomes slightly coarse with shallow and elon-
gated indents with width of several tens of nanometers
FIG. 3. TEM images of CA/PU 40/60 composite nanofibers. (a) as-electrospun, (b) after hydrolyzed in
NaOH/EtOH and washed with DMAc, and (c) after washed with acetone.
DOI 10.1002/pen
were observed (Fig. 3b). Similarly, when CA was
removed from the CA/PU bicomponent fibers, the
remained PU fiber surface displayed shallow and elon-
gated indents (Fig. 3c). The presence of indents, along
with fiber size reduction after selective removal of one of
the components suggested that CA and PU were elon-
gated together along fiber axis in the electrospinning pro-
cess, and each component formed continuous fiber struc-
ture within the binary composite nanofiber. As mentioned
earlier, the miscibility of CA and PU is poor in solution
so that microphase separation took place. Hence, each
microphase separated component in the blend solution is
elongated to form fiber structure simultaneously under
electrical force, resulting in cocontinuous composite nano-
fiber. In the study of poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (PVP)/poly-L-
lactide (PLLA) 1:1 composite nanofiber, the selective re-
moval of component PVP not only greatly reduced the
fiber size but also generated porous fiber surface topology.
The authors concluded that this is a predominant cocon-
tinuous composite nanofiber but some of PVP aggregated
to form domains with dimensions in the order of 100–200
nm [9]. Because the selective removal of any one of the
two components in the CA/PU composite nanofiber did
not give rise to noticeable pore structure on the residual
fiber surface (Fig. 3b and c), we believe that the phase
separation during fiber formation did not generate compo-
nent domains with dimensions over 10s of nanometers in
the CA/PU composite nanofiber, instead most part of each
component was elongated by the electrical force, and was
stabilized due to quick solvent evaporation to form nano-
fiber structure in the composite. For CA/PU blend cast-
film in a wide range of PU content of 25–60 wt%, PU
form domains dispersing in the continuous CA phase
because of phase separation. During the drying of cast
film, the slow solvent evaporation allows PU molecules
reorganize and aggregate to form microphase in the CA
continuous phase [25]. Hence, in the electrospinning tech-
nique, the persistent electric drawing force and fast sol-
vent evaporation rate make it possible that CA and PU
form cocontinuous nanofiber structure in the composite
fiber.
POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 1301
FIG. 4. Stress–strain curves of CA/PU nanofibrous membranes (a) 100/
0, (b) 80/20, (c) 60/40, (d) 40/60, (e) 20/80, and (f) 0/100; (g) 60/40 and
(h) 20/80 after hydrolyzed in aq. NaOH. FIG. 5. DSC curves of CA/PU composite nanofibers. (a) 100/0, (b) 80/
20, (c) 60/40, (d) 40/60, (e) 20/80, and (f) 0/100.

Mechanical Properties of CA/PU Nanofibrous Mats

The typical stress–strain relationship of CA/PU nanofi-
brous mats is shown in Fig. 4. Unlike smooth stress–strain
curve for bulk materials such as cast film, characteristic
seesaw curves are presented for nanofibrous mat due to
the easily slipping and quick reorientation of short nano-
fiber (with length up to several centimeters [13]) in the
loosely packed isotropic nanofibrous mat during stretching
[15]. The curves of those mats with high PU content such
as CA/PU20/80 and 0/100 are in better shape than the
others, mainly because the bonding sites among PU nano-
fibers keep them more integral than the loosely packed
CA/PU60/40 mat [19]. The mechanical properties of CA/
PU nanofibrous mats were summarized in Table 3. CA
nanofibrous mat presents very low rb and eb of 0.98 M
and 8%, respectively. With increasing of PU content from
20 to 60% in the composite, the rb and E of correspond-
ing composite nanofibrous mat increased gradually but
kept in a narrow range of 2.8–3.2 MPa and 78–105 MPa,
respectively. As for CA/PU20/80, which has similar fiber
diameter to CA/PU 40/60, its rb and E increased substan-
tially to respective 7.46 MPa and 258 MPa, which is
about 2.5 times that of CA/PU 40/60. Comparing with the
mechanical properties of pure PU nanofibrous mat, the
presence of 20% CA in the CA/PU20/80 significantly
increased its E to more than 10 folds of CA/PU0/100,
while without much loss of tensile strength. This result
suggests the semirigid CA molecule chains enhance the
rigidity of the CA/PU nanocomposite materials. For CA/
PVA nanofibrous mats composed of two individual pure
component nanofibers from side-by-side electrospinning,
it has been reported that the presence of CA in the CA/
PVA nanofibrous mats did no good to the mechanical
properties of composite mat [4]. Therefore, a cocontinu-
ous fiber structure within a single nanofiber with two
components blended in the nanolevel can largely improve
its mechanical properties. The r of hydrolyzed CA/PU
nanofibrous mat, that is, cellulose/PU60/40 and 20/80 got
improved greatly comparing with that of corresponding
untreated mat (Fig. 4 and Table 3). The deacetylation of
CA in aq. NaOH regenerates cellulose, in which cellulose
molecule chains tend to reorient along fiber axis to form
monoclinic unit cell with crystallinity in the range of 20–
60% [26]. The strong inter- and intra- hydrogen bonding
and existence of crystalline phase within cellulose make it
possess superior mechanical properties to that of CA with
same degree of polymerization. Hence its composite
nanofibrous mat (cellulose/PU) shows better tensile
strength than that of the CA-reinforced PU mat (CA/PU).

TABLE 3. Mechanical properties of CA/PU nanofibrous membranes.

Thermal Properties of CA/PU Composite Nanofibers
CA/PU r (MPa) eb (8C) E (MPa) DSC thermograms of CA/PU composite nanofibers are
presented in Fig. 5. The Tg of CA and PU appeared at
100/0 0.98 6 0.09 8 6 1 39 6 7
80/20 2.80 6 0.35 15 6 1 78 6 11 193.28C (Fig. 5a) and 220.88C (Fig. 5f), respectively. Tg
60/40 2.98 6 0.32 23 6 5 85 6 22 of CA was no longer noticeable in the thermograms of
40/60 3.20 6 0.84 27 6 3 105 6 15 CA/PU composite fiber, because the glass transition his-
20/80 7.46 6 0.64 128 6 17 258 6 9 tory of CA overlapped with the melting of PU component
0/100 8.98 6 0.82 193 6 26 24 6 8
(Fig. 5b and e). In general, Tg of PU increased with the
60/40-Ha 8.52 6 0.46 19 6 1 412 6 45
20/80-Ha 12.63 6 1.50 215 6 28 273 6 17 presence of CA in the composite nanofiber (Table 4), sug-
gesting that the CA phase may partially miscible with PU
a
Hydrolyzed CA/PU nanofibrous membrane in NaOH/H2O. at the interface. Interaction between CA and PU compo-

1302 POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 DOI 10.1002/pen

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CA, high strain and low Young’s modulus of PU, while J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys., 43, 1673 (2005).
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DOI 10.1002/pen POLYMER ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE—-2008 1303