Scalable manufacturing and applications of nanofibers

Abstract

Schematic illustration of polymer, metallic and ceramic nanofibers from electrospinning, blowspinning, centrifugal spinning and drawspinning. Images were modified with permission from Refs. [29,31,42,51,77,97,102,118,136]. Nanofibers have been developed rapidly owing to their novel properties and wide applications. Scalable manufacturing of nanofibers is important for future applications. This paper provides a brief review on current research activities dealing with the synthesis of nanofibers by solution spinning methods, including electrospinning, blowspinning, centrifugal spinning, and drawspinning. Among these methods, electrospinning is the most widely studied and it allows the production of fibers with the smallest average diameters among the four technologies. Blowspinning and centrifugal spinning possess the highest productivity among the spinning techniques owing to their high efficient driving force. Drawspinning is suitable for producing ultra-long single nanofiber or nanofiber mesh, although it presents the lowest productivity among these methods. In addition, this paper describes some scalable applications of nanofibers in various areas, including filters, flexible electronics, and compressive ceramic thermal insulators.