Nanostructured ceramics by electrospinning

Nanostructured ceramics are attractive materials that find potential uses ranging from simple everyday applications like paints and pigments to sophisticated ones such as bioimaging, sensors, etc. The inability to economically synthesize nanoscale ceramic structures in a large scale and simultaneously achieve precise control of their size has restricted their real time application. Electrospinning is an efficient process that can fabricate nanofibers on an industrial scale. During the last 5 years, there has been remarkable progress in applying this process to the fabrication of ceramic nanorods and nanofibers. Ceramic nanofibers are becoming useful and niche materials in several applications owing to their surface dependant and size dependant properties. These advances are reviewed here. The various ceramic nanofiber systems that have been fabricated so far are presented. The physical and chemical property enhancements due to the nanosize have been discussed in detail and the various applications they fit into are outlined in this article. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.