Top-down meets bottom-up : A comparison of the mechanical properties of melt electrospun and self-assembled 1,3,5-benzenetrisamide fibers

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Kluge, Daniel ; Singer, Julia ; Neugirg, Benedikt R. ; Neubauer, Jens W. ; Schmidt, Hans-Werner ; Fery, Andreas:
Top-down meets bottom-up : A comparison of the mechanical properties of melt electrospun and self-assembled 1,3,5-benzenetrisamide fibers.
In: Polymer. Bd. 53 (2012) Heft 25 . - S. 5754-5759.
ISSN 0032-3861
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polymer.2012.10.016

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Abstract

1,3,5-Benzenetrisamides (BTAs) are a prominent class of low-molecular weight compounds in supra- molecular chemistry. They are well-known to self-assemble into micro- and nanofibers in a bottomeup approach. At the same time, BTAs are also suitable for top-down processing by melt electrospinning. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time that both approaches lead to mechanically robust BTA fibers. We compare self-assembled and electrospun fibers of N,N,N00-tripropyl-1,3,5-benzenetricarboxamide on multiple length scales. X-ray diffraction (XRD) reveals the same crystal structure independently from the preparation method. Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we observe significantly different morphologies of both fiber types on the sub-micron-scale. However, atomic force microscopy (AFM) bending experiments show that despite differences in morphology, Young's modulus is comparable for both types and in the lower GPa range (3e5 GPa). Thus, both topedown and bottomeup techniques with their complementary features in terms of accessible structures and potential applications are available for this class of materials.