Mathematical Analysis of the Diameter Distribution of Electrospun Nanofibres

In the electrospining process a web of nanofibres is formed on various surfaces, the web usually consisting of nanofibres of different diameters. There is no one opinion about the reasons for such phenomena as the distribution of the nanofibre diameter is also very sophisticated. The goal of this article is to analyse the distribution of the nanofibre diameter using mathematical statistics and to compare the results with well-known statistical distributions. Analysis of various distributions shows that they are similar to a log normal distribution, but on the other hand the electrospining process does not depend on the time. For estimation of the nanofibre diameter distribution, the compound distribution from several normal distributions is proposed. This hypothesis was checked by empirical investigation of a web from PVA nanofibres. A high correlation between empirical and calculated values using a compound distribution has been established (R-2=0.804). The method presented was checked with other kinds of web from PVA nanofibre, and positive results were obtained.