With the ever-growing concern about environmental conservation, green production and water-based nanofibers have attracted more and more interest from both academic and industrial fields; nevertheless, the stabilization process of water-based nanofibers is primarily relying on the application of organic solvent-based crosslinking agents. In this work, we develop a green approach to fabricate water-resistant polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers by using a water-based epoxy compound, N1, N6-bis(oxiran-2-ylmethyl) hexane-1,6-diamine (EH), as the crosslinker. This EH/sodium carbonate/sodium bicarbonate (CBS) solution system can break down large aggregates of PVA molecules into small ones and promote the uniform distribution of EH in the solution, resulting in the improved stability of crosslinked PVA nanofibers. We firstly report that the uniform dispersion of crosslinking agents in the electrospinning solution plays a vital role in improving the stability of spinning solutions and the water resistance of crosslinked PVA nanofibers by comparing crosslinking performances between water-based epoxy and conventional water-based blocked isocyanate (BI). This work could open up a novel strategy and green approach for the stabilization of water-based nanofibers.
Keywords: crosslinking; electrospinning; epoxy; polyvinyl alcohol; water resistance.