Electrospinning Academic News

Fabrication and characterization of PVA/CS-PCL/gel multi-scale electrospun scaffold: simulating extracellular matrix for enhanced cellular infiltration and proliferation 2021-03-16

bi-componentpoly(vinylalcohol)(PVA)/chitosan(CS)-poly(e-caprolactone)(PCL)/gelatin(Gel) multiscale electrospun scaffold was developed and analyzed in comparison with several other single scale systems. To mimic the native extracellular matrix in composition and structure and promote the migration of cells inside the scaffold, PVA/CS composite nanofibers (102 ± 52 nm) and PCL/Gelcomposite microfiber (2.5 ± 1.0 µm) were simultaneously electrospun from the two opposite syringes and mixed on a rotating mandrel to generate a bi-component multi-scale membrane. The bi-component membrane was crosslinked by glutaraldehyde vapor to maintain its fiber morphology in the wet stage. Morphology, shrinkage and spectroscopic of the electrospun membranes were characterized. To test the newly developed multiscale membrane, we seeded mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) derived from rabbit onto five different fiber scaffolds (PVA, PVA/CS, PCL, PCL/Gel and PVA/CS-PCL/Gel) and compared cell adhesion and proliferat

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR TISSUE ENGINEERING 2021-03-16

Tissue engineering is a relatively new fifield in biomedical engineering that is receiving much attention among the scientifific community and the general public. It is defifined as the biological alternative for harvested tissues, implants, and prostheses, and involves biomaterials, cell biology, biochemistry, biomedical engineering, and transplantation . Tissue engineering has the potential to solve the problem of donor tissues/organs and the limitations of current therapies in clinical tissue injury. The breadth of possibilities for creating replacement body parts includes the reconstitution of tissues (including tendon, vascular, nerve, bone, cartilage) and other organs (kidney, pancreas, liver) . In tissue engineering, the living tissue cells from a human patient are extracted and expanded through cell culture in vitro, and then seeded onto the extracellular matrix (ECM) or scaffold, which guides the growth and proliferation of cells within the laboratory environment. The basis of

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR DRUG DELIVERY 2021-03-16

With the accumulative evidence on the unique physical, chemical, and biological properties of materials that occur exclusively at the nanoscale, there is great interest in identifying, controlling, and manipulating various parameters to engineer the next generation of materials. In the biomedical regime, especially in tissue regeneration, the primary motive for using nanostructured materials comes from the premise that the native extracellular matrix (ECM) imparts instructive physical and biological cues to cells at a similar scale . Thus, the creation of an in vitro microenvironment that can capture the key physicochemical features of native ECM would lead to predictable cell responses in vivo. It has been shown that cells can respond to stimuli at different length scales, from nanometer to millimeter (Lutolf and Hubbell, 2005).

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR LITHIUM-ION BATTERIES 2021-03-16

Energy is one of the most important topics of this century. The increasing global energy crisis and environmental pollution have driven scientists and engineers to develop highly effificient and environmentally friendly methods of creating and storing renewable energy . A battery is an electrochemical device that stores electrical energy as chemical energy in its anode and cathode during the charging process, and releases the energy when needed as electrical output during discharge. Batteries based on lithium-ion intercalation have become very important since the introduction of commercial lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) by Sony in 1991, as they show great promise as an appealing power source in a wide variety of applications, such as portable electronic devices, energy storage systems, electric vehicles, and hybrid electric vehicless.

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR CATALYSTS 2021-03-16

The chapter begins with a brief introduction to methods for the preparation of nanofifibrous catalysts and gives some examples of directly utilizing electrospun nanofifibers as active catalysts. It further focuses on discussing catalysts supported on nanofifibers and illustrating recent efforts toward the development and design of nanofifibrous catalysts with greatly improved stability and activity. The chapter concludes with a personal perspective on the potential of nanofifibrous catalysts in various important applications.

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBER ELECTRODES: A PROMISING PLATFORM FOR SUPERCAPACITOR APPLICATIONS 2021-03-16

With the ongoing global energy crisis and environmental concerns, the development of sustainable and renewable energy storage and conversion systems, such as electrochemical capacitors, lithium ion batteries, and proton-exchange membrane fuel cells, has evolved into an urgent task . Electrochemical capacitors, also called supercapacitors (SCs), are considered highly complementary to batteries due to their high power density, extremely long cycle life, low maintenance cost, and safe operation features. Their excellent performance makes SCs promising for portable electronics, power back-up devices, hybrid electric vehicles, and other electronic products.

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR OPTICAL APPLICATIONS 2021-03-16

The optical applications of electrospun nanofifibers should be separated from the applications of bulk materials or fifilm materials, and lie in the unique optical properties of the nanofifibers. Based on this, electrospun nanofifibers for special optical applications can be divided in three types: pristine polymer nanofifibers; doped nanofifibers; and treated nanofifibers.This chapter discusses electrospun nanofifibers fabricated with these three methods, and the corresponding potential optical applications.

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR CARBON DIOXIDE CAPTURE 2021-03-16

The enormous release of greenhouse gases has resulted in global warming, which is an alarming threat to the environment and public health; thus, it has been the urgent concern of scientists to solve this issue . At this writing, up to 400 ppm of CO2 exist in the atmosphere, which is much higher than the recommended value (300 ppm) of the US International Energy Agency. It is therefore essential to develop and employ CO2 capture and storage (CCS) technologies to cope with the global demand of CO2 reduction. To limit CO2 emissions from power stations into the atmosphere, CCS strategies need to be capable of it is a very critical, as well as challenging, job for CCS to be highly sensitive to CO2, so that it can capture the maximum CO2 quantity from a mixed stream of various gases, as CO2 is nowhere released singly. CCS techniques have been focused on three strategies, i.e., precombustion, postcombustion, and oxyfuel processes.

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR SENSORS 2021-03-16

Electrospinning is one of the most important technologies for the preparation of micro/nanoscale continuous polymer fifibers. Electrospinning technology can signifificantly reduce the fifiber diameter, into the micro/nanoscale, and enhance the specifific surface area (SSA) to great advantage. Furthermore, the raw materials can include a wide range of natural polymers, synthetic polymers, and inorganics. By adjusting the ratio of spinning solution, the spinning liquid composition, and the posttreatment process, and with the combination of multiple technologies, fifibers can be prepared with diverse properties. Consequently, electrospun nanofifibrous membranes (NMs) can be applied in fifiltration, catalysis, supercapacitors, lithium batteries, sensors, and tissue engineering, among others .

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR WATERPROOF AND BREATHABLE CLOTHING 2021-03-16

Electrospinning, as one versatile technique to produce porous nanofibrous membranes, has gained considerable interest attributed to the wide range of raw materials, low power consumption,and convenience in creating a hydrophobic surface Apart from this, the other unique advantages, such as low weight, small pore size,high porosity, interconnected tortuous channels, and controllable porous structure, have helped electrospinning become an effective strategy to fabricate functional W&B membranes The porous structure and surface wettability of the fibrous membranes can be easily regulated by changing several parameters, including solution properties , processing parameters, and environmental parameters , which makes it easier to prepare membranes with better equilibrium of waterproofness and breathability. Electrospun nanofibers with various morphologies and structures have been fabricated to exhibit W&B performance, and we focus on the electrospun W&B membranes with respect to various pol

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR PROTEIN ADSORPTION 2021-03-16

Biopharmaceutical therapeutics are quickly becoming major contributors to the fifights against life-threatening and debilitating disorders. However, between 1997 and 2013 that number grew to 26%, and as of this writing there are thousands of potential drug products of biological origin in clinical development While these techniques have provided acceptable results, they are often ineffificient in terms of material and time requirements . With these challenges also come opportunities to improve the separation and purifification processes of biopharmaceutical therapeutics; herein, new separation and purifification media utilizing electrospun cellulose and carbon nanofifibers as the supports for chemical ligands within membrane adsorbers are reported. .

ELECTROSPUN NANOFIBERS FOR OIL-WATER SEPARATION 2021-03-15

With the development of industry and urbanization, the fast-growing demand for petroleum products has signifificantly intensifified the exploitation, processing, and transportation of crude oil and its byproducts. However, due to the frequent oil-spill accidents and enormous release of oily sanitary sewage and industrial wastewater, disastrous oil pollution continues to occur around the world . Leaked oils in water mainly consist of petroleum hydrocarbon and other toxic chemicals which cause long-term harm to living things in the water and signifificantly threaten human health . Conversely, the presence of water in fuel oil products is hazardous for automobiles, ships, and even aeroplanes, since the water may breed microbes in the oil pipeline, affect the lubrication properties of fuel, or etch the cylinder, which would destroy the engines. Thus effective oilewater separation methods are highly desirable to meet the needs of both oily wastewater remediation and fuel oil purifification.

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