The effect of adding different amount of spinning additives on preparation of nano Alumina fibers using a combined method of sol gel and electrospining

Alumina nano fibers were produced using a combined method of sol-gel andelectros pinning method. The sol was first prepared by mixing of tri-isoproxidealuminum in aqueous solution of nitric acid. In the next step, ethylene glycol,acid lactic and poly vinyl alcohol were added to the solution .Finally, the sol wasthen heated at 80 °C to obtain gel. The resulting gel was converted to nano fibersof aluminum oxide by electrospinning method. The nano fibers were dried at60 °C for 24 h and sintered at 1200 °C for 2 h. The results of XRD and FTIRshowed that, in all samples the dominant phase was the corundum phase. Todecrease the sintering temperature, magnesium nitrate hexahydrate (MgN2O6 *6H2O) and sodium ethoxylate (SiC8 H2o O4) were added to the sol containing10% Polyvinyl alcohol. The XRD and FTIR analysis of this sample indicated thepresence of corundum phase when the sintering temperature of 1000°C was used. Accordingly, the energy consumption was reduced as the sintering temperaturedecreased about 200°C by adding the additives. The SEM and TEM analysis alsoshowed formation of non-agglomerated nano fibers with diameters of 41nmwhen 10% polyvinyl alcohol and 2% sodium ethoxylate (SiC8 H20 O4) was addedto the sol.