Metal-polymer Composite Nanofibres by Electrospinning

Electrospinning is a versatile technique of producing continuous fibres and structures with diameters in sub-micron range from rich variety of polymers and their composites. Traditionally polymers in the form of solution or melt are used for electrospinning. For the first time, we utilized the co-axial electrospinning process to produce core-shell structured metal-polymer nanofibres using metal (core) and polymer (shell). A range of different polymer solutions (polyethylene oxide, poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) and polyurethane) and eutectic metal alloys of two different melting points, namely MCP₄₇ and MCP₇₀, were investigated. The morphological structure of the resultant composite nanofibres has been studied by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM).