Functional Self-Assembled Nanofibers by Electrospinning

Electrospinning constitutes a unique technique for the production of nanofibers with diameters down to the range of a few nanometers. In strong contrast to conventional fiber producing techniques, it relies on self-assembly processes driven by the Coulomb interactions between charged elements of the fluids to be spun to nanofibers. The transition from a macroscopic fluid object such as a droplet emerging from a die to solid nanofibers is controlled by a set of complex physical instability processes. They give rise to extremely high extensional deformations and strain rates during fiber formation causing among others a high orientational order in the nanofibers as well as enhanced mechanical properties. Electrospinning is predominantly applied to polymer based materials including natural and synthetic polymers, but, more recently, its use has been extended towards the production of metal, ceramic and glass nanofibers exploiting precursor routes. The nanofibers can be functionalized during electrospinning by introducing pores, fractal surfaces, by incorporating functional elements such as catalysts, quantum dots, drugs, enzymes or even bacteria. The production of individual fibers, random nonwovens, or orientationally highly ordered nonwovens is achieved by an appropriate selection of electrode configurations. Broad areas of application exist in Material and Life Sciences for such nanofibers, including not only optoelectronics, sensorics, catalysis, textiles, high efficiency filters, fiber reinforcement but also tissue engineering, drug delivery, and wound healing. The basic electrospinning process has more recently been extended towards compound co-electrospinning and precision deposition electrospinning to further broaden accessible fiber architectures and potential areas of application.