A Salt Controlled Scalable Approach for Formation of Polyelectrolyte Complex Fiber<sup>†</sup>
Wentao Huang, Dezhong Liu, Liping Zhu, Shuguang Yang
Abstract
Summary of main observation and conclusion A new scalable approach is reported here for producing the polyelectrolyte complex (PEC) fiber of alginate (ALG) and poly(diallyldimethylammonium chloride) (PDDA). Salt (LiBr, NaBr, or KBr) is used to restrict the complexation of negatively charged ALG and positively charged PDDA in solution to obtain spinnable fluid that can be directly extruded into the coagulation bath to form nascent fiber. A water washing step is adopted right after the formation of nascent fiber to eliminate the defects in fiber. Morphology and mechanical properties of the as‐prepared ALG/PDDA complex fiber are found to be greatly affected by the water washing, as well as the amount and the type of salt used. As the reported approach is similar to the wet‐spinning process which is a commonly used method for industrial production of fibers, it is promising to be applied in larger scale production of PEC fibers.