Electrospinning

Electrospinning provides a simple and versatile method for generating nanofibers from a rich variety of materials that include polymers, composites, and ceramics with diameters ranging from 2 nm to several micrometers. The first description of a process recognizable as electrospinning was in 1902 when J. F. Cooley filed a United States patent entitled ‘Apparatus for electrically dispersing fluids’. In his patent (US 692631) he describes a method of using high voltage power supplies to generate yarn.

In a typical process, an electrical potential is applied between a droplet of a polymer solution, or melt, held at the end of a capillary tube and a grounded target. When the applied electric field overcomes the surface tension of the droplet, a charged jet of polymer solution is ejected from the tip of the Taylor cone and the discharged polymer solution jet undergoes an instability and elongation process, which allows the jet to become very long and thin. Meanwhile, the solvent evaporates, leaving behind a charged polymer fiber. In the case of the melt the discharged jet solidifies when it travels in the air.

With small fiber diameter, low density, large specific surface area, small pore size, interconnected pore structure, and high porosity, electrospun nanofibers have been successfully applied in various fields, such as, nanocatalysis, tissue engineering scaffolds, protective clothing, air and liquid filtration, biomedical, pharmaceutical, optical electronics, healthcare, biotechnology, defense and security, solar and fuel cells, battery and environmental engineering. Overall the main advantage of this top-down nanomanufacturing process is its relatively low cost compared to that of most bottom-up methods.

References:
1- Li et al., Adv. Mater. 2004, 16, 1151-1170
2- Reneker et al., 1995. J. of Electros., 35, 151-160
3- Stanger et al. Smithers Rapra publishing, ISBN 9781847350916
4- Ramakrishna, et al., World Scientific Publishing, ISBN 9812564152 « 閉じる