Trends in electrospinning of natural nanofibers

Nanotechnology has become in recent years a topic of great interest to scientists and engineers, and is now established as prioritized research area in many countries. The reduction of the size to the nanometer range brings an array of new possibilities in terms of material properties, in particular with respect to achievable surface to volume ratios. Electrospinning of natural fibers is a novel process for producing superfine fibers by forcing a solution through a spinneret with an electric field. An experimental study on this technique has been made in this paper and the effect of systematic parameters on electrospun nanofibers were critically analyzed. Based on this study, the key process parameters have been identified according to our experimental observations. (c) 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.