Applications of electrospun fibers

The simplicity of the electrospinning fabrication process, the diversity of electrospinnable materials, and the unique features associated with electrospun fibers make this technique and resultant structures attractive for various applications. The past few years witnessed the significant progresses in the application areas of electrospun fibers, which were demonstrated by the numbers of the recent published patents on electrospinning. It is very apparent that the current focus has been shifted from studying the modification of the electrospinning conditions and apparatus for obtaining fibers with different sizes, shapes, morphologies, structures, alignments before 2000 to looking for the possible applications of these resultant nanofibers with broad functionalities after 2001. The current paper presents a systematic review on the recent applications of electrospun nanofibers in a broad range of fields including biomedical applications such as drug delivery, tissue engineering, wound dressing and cosmetics, functional materials and devices such as composite reinforcement, filters, protective clothing and smart textiles, and energy and electronics such as batteries/cells and capacitors, sensors and catalysts. Although some of these applications may be still remained in the laboratory in the current stage, plenty of successful examples have proved that electrospun nanofibers have a bright future in a variety of industries.