Fecha de publicación: -- Fuente: Journal of applied polymer Lugar: RESEARCH ARTICLE ANOVA analysis of electrospun PVA nanofibers identifies solution concentration as the dominant factor governing fiber diameter, with a significant concentration—voltage interaction. Increasing needle-to-collector distance unexpectedly thickens fibers rather than thinning them, challenging conventional assumptions and offering a statistical basis for tailoring nanofiber diameter to specific applications.

ABSTRACT
One of the most important challenges in electrospinning technique is the fabrication of uniform nanofibers with parameter-dependent control of diameter within the studied range for specific applications. To address this issue, we present a systematic analysis on polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers, employing Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) to quantitatively assess the impact of four crucial parameters: solution concentration (C), flow rate (F), applied voltage (V), and needle-to-collector distance (D), using a resource-efficient fractional factorial design. Average fiber diameter ranged from 91 to 363 nm across the 27 experimental runs. Solution concentration was the dominant factor, accounting for the 47.6% of the total variance in diameter (p < 0.001), followed by voltage (16.8%, p = 0.002) and needle-to-collector distance (6.3%, p = 0.038). Flow rate had no significant effect (0.5%, p = 0.523). A significant interaction between concentration and voltage (C × V, p = 0.004) was found, indicating that the effect of voltage on fiber diameter depends strongly on solution concentration. A regression model incorporating these parameters and their interactions achieved an R
2 of 83.3% (adjusted R
2 = 77.1%, predicted R
2 = 42.4%), providing a statistical basis for understanding, rather than precisely predicting, application-tailored diameter control in PVA nanofibers.