Electrospinning of Manmade and Biopolymer Nanofibers—Progress in Techniques, Materials, and Applications

Abstract

Electrospinning of nanofibers has developed quickly from a laboratory curiosity to a highly versatile method for the preparation of a wide variety of nanofibers, which are of interest from a fundamental as well as a technical point of view. A wide variety of materials has been processed into individual nanofibers or nanofiber mats with very different morphologies. The diverse properties of these nanofibers, based on different physical, chemical, or biological behavior, mean they are of interest for different applications ranging from filtration, antibacterial coatings, drug release formulations, tissue engineering, living membranes, sensors, and so on. A particular advantage of electrospinning is that numerous non‐fiber forming materials can be immobilized by electrospinning in nanofiber nonwovens, even very sensitive biological objects such as virus, bacteria, and cells. The progress made during the last few years in the field of electrospinning is fascinating and is highlighted in this Feature Article, with particular emphasis on results obtained in the authors' research units. Specific areas of importance for the future of electrospinning, and which may open up novel applications, are also highlighted.

Role of zinc interstitials and oxygen vacancies of ZnO in photocatalysis: a bottom-up approach to control defect density

“…A linear t for the data points from TEM analysis yielded a growth rate of 0.20 nm per cycle, where ALD should be acknowledged for the excellent control on the lm thickness against deposition cycles. 19,42,43 On the other hand, SE from Si yielded a growth rate 0.18 nm per cycle, which is closely comparable with the results from TEM. Fig.…”

Electrospun zein nanofibers incorporating cyclodextrins

“…(Agarwal, Greiner, & Wendorff, 2009;Bhardwaj & Kundu, 2010;Ramakrishna et al, 2006;Teo & Ramakrishna, 2009). Moreover, functional electrospun nanofibrous composite structures can also be produced by incorporating functional additives and/or nanoparticles in the fiber matrix or on the fiber surface (Andrew & Clarke, 2008;Anitha, Brabu, Thiruvadigal, Gopalakrishnan, & Natarajan, 2012;Dong, Wang, Sun, & Hinestroza, 2008;He, Hu, Yao, Wang, & Yu, 2009;Roso, Sundarrajan, Pliszka, Ramakrishna, & Modesti, 2008;Zhang, Shao, et al, 2011).…”

“…Unique properties of electrospun nanofibers/nanowebs including a relatively large surface area to volume ratio and pore sizes within the nanoscale and multi-functionality due to the presence of functional additives and nanoparticles make them favorable candidates in a variety of application areas such as membranes/nanofilters, wound dressing, tissue engineering, drug delivery, nanotextiles, nanocomposites, energy, environment, etc. (Agarwal et al, 2009;Bhardwaj & Kundu, 2010;Chigome, Darko, & Torto, 2011;Lu, Wang, & Wei, 2009;Ramakrishna et al, 2006;Teo & Ramakrishna, 2009;Thavasi, Singh, & Ramakrishna, 2008;Xie, Li, & Xia, 2008;Yoon, Hsiao, & Chu, 2008).…”

Synthesis and characterization of manganese tetroxide (Mn3O4) nanofibers by electrospinning technique

“…5) it is observed that the average fiber diameter decreases with the increase in manganese acetate concentration. This is mostly due to the increase in electrical conductivity of the solution with increasing salt concentration [22]. SEM photograph of the calcined nanofiber at 1000 ℃ (Fig.…”