Abstract
Polymeric nano-fiber based materials and their application is one of the research areas in materials science and nanotechnology. Nano-fibrous materials are receiving extensive research interest for applications in diverse fields as biosensors, optical and chemical sensors, stimuli-responsive or “smart” materials, bioreactors, drug delivery carriers, antibacterial materials, tissue engineering scaffolds, clean energy, electronic and semi-conductive materials, reinforced nano-composites, affinity membranes, etc. This is because of their important and interesting characteristics such as a very high surface area to volume ratio, tunable void volume fraction and inter-fiber space, flexibility in surface functionalities, good mechanical performance and malleability to construct a wide variety of nano-fiber based materials including beaded, ribbon, porous, and core-shell nano-fibers. Electro-spinning or electro-static spinning is the most considered technique for fabrication of nano-fibers. Synthetic and biopolymers, polymer blends, melts, nano-particle or drug-impregnated polymers, and ceramic precursors have been successfully used to produce electro-spun nano-fibers. Because the surface chemical and physical properties of the nano-fibers play an important role for a specific application, various surface modification techniques have been applied. A variety of bioactive molecules including anti-cancer drugs, enzymes and polysaccharides have been physically immobilized on the surface of nano-fibers.
Highlights
Nano-fibrous materials are receiving extensive research interest for applications in diverse fields as biosensors, optical and chemical sensors, stimuli-responsive or “smart” materials, bioreactors, drug delivery carriers, antibacterial materials, tissue engineering scaffolds, clean energy, electronic and semi-conductive materials, reinforced nano-composites, affinity membranes, etc. This is because of their important and interesting characteristics such as a very high surface area to volume ratio, tunable void volume fraction and inter-fiber space, flexibility in surface functionalities, good mechanical performance and malleability to construct a wide variety of nano-fiber based materials including beaded, ribbon, porous, and core-shell nano-fibers
Because the surface chemical and physical properties of the nano-fibers play an important role for a specific application, various surface modification techniques have been applied
A variety of bioactive molecules including anti-cancer drugs, enzymes and polysaccharides have been physically immobilized on the surface of nano-fibers
Summary
Fiber materials with diameters within the nanometer range when compared with micro-scale materials have several important characteristics such as a very high surface area to volume ratio, which for a nano-fiber can be as large as 103 times that of a microfiber, tunable void volume fraction or “porosity”, inter-fiber space or “pore size” ranging from ten nanometers to several micrometers, flexibility in surface functionalities, good mechanical performance and malleability to construct a wide variety of fiber sizes, shapes as well as the formation of different tailored membranes [1].Polymer nano-fibers have been fabricated using physical, chemical, thermal and electrostatic techniques such as drawing [2], template synthesis [3], liquid-liquid phase separation [4], self-assembly [5], vapor-phase polymerization [6], and electrospinning or electrostatic spinning [1]. Because the surface chemical and physical properties of the nano-fibers play an important role for a specific application, various surface modification techniques have been applied. A number of electro-spun polymeric nano-fibers have been fabricated for applications in the diverse fields such as affinity membrane [15], biosensor, optical and chemical sensors [16], stimuli-responsive or “smart” materials [17], bioreactors [18], drug delivery carriers, antibacterial materials, tissue engineering scaffolds, wound dressing [19], clean energy [20], electronic and semi-conductive materials [21], air filtration [22], reinforced nano-composites [23], and membrane distillation [24].
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