Electro spinning of submicron diameter polymer filaments
AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army
InventorsJames Kleinmeyer, Joseph Deitzel, James Hirvonen
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An electro spinning process yields uniform, nanometer diameter polymer filaments. A thread-forming polymer is extruded through an anodically biased die orifice and drawn through an anodically biased electrostatic field. A continuous polymer filament is collected on a grounded collector. The polymer filament is linearly oriented and highly uniform in quality. The filament is particularly useful for weaving body armor, for chemical/biological protective clothing, as a biomedical tissue growth support, for fabricating micro sieves and for microelectronics fabrication.
Claims9
An electro spinning process for extruding a thread-forming polymer and drawing between an electrically charged die, having a first electrical bias and a first polarity and an electrically charged collecting means to produce a continuous polymer filament, comprising the steps of:
- liquefying the thread-forming polymer and extruding through a die orifice to form a liquid-state filament,
- drawing the liquid-state filament through a longitudinally sequentially biased electrostatic field having the same polarity as the first polarity, thereby imparting a bias gradient to the liquid-state filament,
- solidifying the liquid-state filament to form a linearly oriented solid polymer filament, and
- collecting the solid polymer filament on the collecting means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.