Electrospinning through the prism of time

doi:10.1016/j.mtchem.2021.100543

Materials Today Chemistry

Volume 21, August 2021, 100543

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mtchem.2021.100543 Get rights and content

Highlights

•
Basic principles, theoretical background, commonly used materials, and parameters affecting the process of electrostatic fibers spinning are overviewed.
•
The approaches and techniques used for the alignment of the fibers are systematized.
•
The evolution of the electrospinning setups is described: from needles to wires.
•
A brief overview of the electrospun materials applications is reported.
•
The actual state and future challenges of electrospinning are summarized.

Abstract

Electrospinning is a versatile and flexible technique for the preparation of ultrafine fibers. The present study aims to provide a comprehensive overview of electrospinning, as a complex technique, its evolution toward the high-throughput techniques, including the basic principles, parameters influencing the fibers production process, methods applied to solve the alignment difficulties, commonly used polymers and solvents, and the applications of the electrospun materials. We begin with an insight into the history of electrospinning, followed by its theoretical background and typical apparatus. Then, its renaissance over the past two decades as a powerful technology for the production of nanofibers suitable for industrial scale is presented. Afterward, we briefly discuss the applications of electrospun fibers, including use in different fields of industry, energy harvesting/conversion/storage, photonic and electronic devices, as well as biomedical applications. In the end, we also offer perspectives on the challenges and new directions for developments in electrospinning.

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Introduction – insight into the past

Nowadays, in this rapidly emerging world, the word ‘nanotechnology’ is well known not only for scientists involved in this field but also for sci-fi writers who create in their minds wonderful pieces of future worlds. It has become quite common for almost everybody who uses modern clothes, devices, and gadgets. This is thanks to the rapid development of progressive technologies, which has a great influence on the investigation of not only novel functional and structural materials but also the

Production of nanofibers

The significant impulse that led to the development of the most outstanding and state-of-the-art technologies was caused by recent discoveries in nanoscience. A jump to the lower, so-called, ‘nanolevel’ of the structural ordering of matter allowed one to unfold the scale dependence of properties of several well-known materials. The world of nanomaterials comprises a wide range of intriguing materials with outstanding physical and chemical properties. These materials include zero-dimensional

Preparation of ceramic and carbon-based fibers by ES: brief overview

The standard experimental sequence for the preparation of the electrospun fibers can be divided into 3 basic steps:

1)
preparation of the ES polymer solutions;
2)
ES process resulting in the polymer (or polymer-based) fibers, commonly called precursor (if will undergo further treatment) or composite fibers (if contain more than single-polymer component);
3)
postspinning treatment of the polymer-based precursor composite fibers.

If the desired fibrous materials have to be of polymer or polymer-based

Application of nanofibers

Over the last three decades of the emerging development of ES, nanofibers got a wide variety of applications. Each year the number of fields, where fibers, and particularly electrospun nanofibers, are applicable, is rapidly growing. The current and prospective fields of application of nanofibrous materials are depicted by the scheme in Fig. 19. Blue arrows indicate the relationship in the frames of the particular field (intrafield), while the red ones indicate the relationship between the

Summary and future challenges

In this overview, the results published to date concerning the development of the ES technique, the evolution of designs and modifications, fibers collection techniques, and its possible applications are summarized. Schematic visualization, or also can be called ‘a graphical conclusion,’ is presented in Fig. 20. Here parameters by nature are shown in particular color: blue – feedstock properties – solution, red – experimental setup, yellow – environmental conditions; increase in the values of

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge Dominika Marcin-Behunova (UGT SAV, Kosice, Slovakia) for the help in the preparation of SEM micrographs.

This work was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under Contract no. PP-COVID-20-0025, APVV-17-0625, APVV-20-299 by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic and the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the project Research Centre of Advanced Materials and Technologies for

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Citation Excerpt :
1D micro/nanomaterials have been constructed by many methods. The ES method [12,13] has become one of the most extensively applied techniques for preparing micro/nanostructured materials due to its high flexibility, economical efficiency, and usability. Micro/nanomaterials with different morphologies can be acquired by the improved spinneret and ES device, which can facilitate the development and application of multifunctional materials.
Multifunctional materials have more extensive applications than their counterpart single-functional materials due to their superior polyfunctions, among which fluorescent-conductive-magnetic (FCM) multifunctional materials have been extensively investigated for their unique performance and application value. However, the material properties may be degraded due to the adverse interactions among the fluorescent, conductive and magnetic materials with three different functions when they are directly blended. Hence, such adverse interactions brought by the direct contact of different functional materials should be avoided by designing and preparing unique structures. In this study, a one-dimensional (1D) tri-coaxial microbelt is innovatively designed, which can effectively separate and integrate different materials at the micro-level to obtain excellent macroscopic polyfunction. Generally, the preparation of tri-coaxial structure requires multistep procedures. To facilely construct the designed tri-coaxial microbelt, as a case study, a novel [CoFe₂O₄/polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA)]@[polyaniline (PANI)/PMMA]@[Tb(acac)₃bpy/PMMA] (defined as [M@C@F]) tri-coaxial microbelts and arrays are synthesized through the one-pot direct electrospinning (ES) process. The tri-coaxial microbelts are assembled by the CoFe₂O₄/PMMA magnetic core layer, the PANI/PMMA conductive intermediate layer, and the Tb(acac)₃bpy/PMMA insulated-fluorescent shell layer. It is the first time to integrate three different functions into the tri-coaxial microbelts and restrict three functions into three independent zones in the microbelt to shun adverse mutual interferences. The function of each layer can be regulated by adjusting the position and content of the three functional materials. Comparison with the control samples indicates that the property of the tri-coaxial microbelts array is directly impacted by structure and the arrangement modes of the building units. Hence, excellent macroscopic polyfunctions are obtained via designing and preparing microscopic partitioned building units and arranged modes. Array displays superior green fluorescence at 549 nm, tunable electrical conduction and magnetism. The new technique of one-pot direct construction of the tri-coaxial microbelts is significant and can be extended to for assemble other multifunctional materials. Moreover, the constructed [M@C@F] tri-coaxial microbelts and arrays have applications in various fields, such as micro-integrated circuits, microchips, and micro/nanodevices.

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Materials Today Chemistry

Electrospinning through the prism of time

Highlights

Abstract

Graphical abstract

Section snippets

Introduction – insight into the past

Production of nanofibers

Preparation of ceramic and carbon-based fibers by ES: brief overview

Application of nanofibers

Summary and future challenges

Declaration of competing interest

Acknowledgments

J. Electrost.

Prog. Polym. Sci.

Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev.

Separ. Purif. Technol.

J. Chromatogr. A

Desalination

Food Hydrocolloids

J. Contr. Release

Compos. Sci. Technol.

Polymer (Guildf)

J. Contr. Release

Polymer (Guildf)

Polymer (Guildf)

J. Electrost.

Polymer (Guildf).

Mater. Sci. Eng. C.

Int. J. Pharm.

Eur. Polym. J.

Appl. Surf. Sci.

Polymer (Guildf).

Biomaterials

J. Mol. Liq.

Carbon N. Y.

Appl. Surf. Sci.

J. Eur. Ceram. Soc.

Prog. Polym. Sci.

Ceram. Int.

On the production, properties, and some suggested uses of the finest threads

Proc. Phys. Soc., London

Chapter 1 Introduction

The development of electrospinning technologies for commercial application

Electrospun nanofibrous materials and their hydrogen storage

Hydrog. Storage

High-performance hydrogen storage nanoparticles inside hierarchical porous carbon nanofibers with stable cycling

ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces

Ceramic nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning and their applications in catalysis, environmental science, and energy technology

Polym. Adv. Technol.

Electrospinning of nanofibers for energy applications

Nanomaterials

Nanofiber ion-exchange membranes for the rapid uptake and recovery of heavy metals from water

Membranes (Basel)

Reverse osmosis and membrane distillation for desalination of groundwater: a review

ISRN Mater. Sci.

Advances in membrane distillation for water desalination and purification applications

Water (Switzerland)

Nanofiber electrodes for biosensors

Doxycycline-loaded coaxial nanofiber coating of titanium implants enhances osseointegration and inhibits Staphylococcus aureus infection

Biomed. Mater.

Polymeric nanofiber coating with tunable combinatorial antibiotic delivery prevents biofilm-associated infection in vivo

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Unit. States Am.

Multifunctional Nanofibers Towards Active Biomedical Therapeutics

Designing electrospun nanofiber mats to promote wound healing-a review

J. Mater. Chem. B.

Electrospun nanofiber-based drug delivery systems

Health (Irvine. Calif).

Electrospinning process and applications of electrospun fibers

Conf. Rec. 1993 IEEE Ind. Appl. Conf. Twenty-Eighth IAS Annu. Meet.

Formation of titania nanofibers: a direct sol-gel route in supercritical CO2

Langmuir

Solution blow spinning: parameters optimization and effects on the properties of nanofibers from poly(lactic acid)/dimethyl carbonate solutions

J. Mater. Sci.

Electrospinning of nanofibers: reinventing the wheel?

Adv. Mater.

Electrospinning of nanofibers

J. Appl. Polym. Sci.

Electrospinning jets and nanofibrous structures

Biomicrofluidics