Hybrid carbon silica nanofibers through sol-gel electrospinning.

A controlled sol-gel synthesis incorporated with electrospinning is employed to produce polyacrylonitrile-silica (PAN-silica) fibers. Hybrid fibers are obtained with varying amounts of silica precursor (TEOS in DMF catalyzed by HCl) and PAN. Solution viscosity, conductivity, and surface tension are found to relate strongly to the electrospinnability of PAN-silica solutions.

Fibrillar structure of methylcellulose hydrogels.

It is well established that aqueous solutions of methylcellulose (MC) can form hydrogels on heating, with the rheological gel point closely correlated to the appearance of optical turbidity. However, the detailed gelation mechanism and the resulting gel structure remain poorly understood. Herein the fibrillar structure of aqueous MC gels was precisely quantified with a powerful combination of (real space) cryogenic transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and (reciprocal space) small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) techniques.

Hybrid silica-PVA nanofibers via sol-gel electrospinning.

We report on the synthesis of poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA)-silica hybrid nanofibers via sol-gel electrospinning. Silica is synthesized through acid catalysis of a silica precursor (tetraethyl orthosilicate (TEOS) in ethanol-water), and fibers are obtained by electrospinning a mixture of the silica precursor solution and aqueous PVA. A systematic investigation on how the amount of TEOS, the silica-PVA ratio, the aging time of the silica precursor mixture, and the solution rheology influence the fiber morphology is undertaken and reveals a composition window in which defect-free hybrid nanofibers with diameters as small as 150 nm are obtained.