Electrospinning of non-woven poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) nanofibrous webs for corrosive chemical filtration: Process evaluation and optimization by Taguchi and multiple regression analyses

• Ultrafine fibers of poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) were electrospun.
• Taguchi and Multiple regression analyses were used for process optimization.
• Predicted fiber diameters closely match with the experimentally observed ones.
• Solution concentration predominantly controls the average nanofiber diameter.

Nano-fibrous ultra-filtration membranes of poly(styrene-co-acrylonitrile) were produced from n-butanone solution by electrospinning. Effects of governing parameters on morphology and variation in diameter of the electrospun fibers were experimentally investigated by orthogonal experimental design. The process parameters were selected by Taguchi's method. Multiple regression analysis was used to obtain a quantitative relationship between selected electrospinning parameters and average fiber diameter and ANOVA was used to identify the statistically significant parameters and set the optimal level for each parameter. Confirmation experiment revealed a good agreement between the predicted values of the response obtained from optimum level parameters and the observed experimental values.

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