AC-electrospinning Complex Nanofibers from Inorganic Nanocolloid -Polymer Complex Coacervates in Aqueous Media

Abstract

In recent years, the fabrication of organic-inorganic hybrid nanomaterials has gained great interest, as the chemical activity of organic and inorganic components can be harnessed to develop new functional materials with high mechanical strength, biocompatible, flexible, thermal, and chemical stability. Synthesis and processing of such complex 1D or 2D structure nanocomposites, such as nanoscaled tubes, rings, and sheets for the practical application require robust yet simple methods. Among these methods, electrospinning under dc- or ac-electrical fields is a versatile process to synthesize continuous fibers from submicron to nanometer diameter. However, its potential in fabricating hybrid nanofibers from self-assembled coacervate droplets of organic and inorganic materials has not yet been fully explored and understood. Here, we have demonstrated a facile and rapid AC-electrospinning process to fabricate luminescent or non-luminescent, flexible, smooth, and ultralong fibers through distinct complex coacervates of polyethylene oxide (PEO)-coated CdTe QDs with polyacrylic acid and inorganic polyoxometalate (POM) with PEO in salted water, respectively. The width and length of the resulting complex fibers, as characterized by fluorescence microscopy and scanning electron microscopy, are controlled by tuning the applied AC voltage and frequency and coacervate viscoelasticity. The current study showcases the exploitation of coacervate solutions to assimilate functional QDs and POMs in flexible polymer nanofibers for broad biomedical and nanotechnological applications.