Chapter 2 - Melt electrospinning for membrane fabrication

Abstract

Nanofibrous membranes fabricated by electrospinning have attracted increasing attention in recent years due to their unique characteristics, such as large surface area, high porosity, and pore interconnectivity. In the last few decades, research on electrospinning was primarily focused on solution electrospinning, and melt electrospinning was paid less attention. Recently, melt electrospinning has attracted more interest in preparing nanofibers from polymers, as it is solvent-free, cost-efficient, and environmentally friendly and can prepare fibers with higher mechanical stability than the traditional solution electrospinning method. Preparation of the ultrafine nanofibers from most thermoplastic polymers promotes melt electrospinning for a variety of applications, e.g., biomedicine, tissue engineering, drug delivery, filtration, textile, etc. This chapter outlines the melt electrospinning principles, its advantages and disadvantages, influential parameters on the melt electrospinning process, and the efforts to prepare nanofibrous membranes via melt electrospinning.