Electrospinning and Nanofibrous Structures for Biomedical Applications

Abstract

Electrospinning is a popular technology in the biomedical field owing to its simplicity and versatility and also the nanofibrous products it can produce. The nanofibers and nanofibrous structures are desirable as delivery vehicles for the controlled release of therapeutic agents, tissue engineering scaffolds, biosensors, filtration membranes, etc. Despite its simplicity, obtaining desired nanofibers and nanofibrous structures through electrospinning is not always easy. There are several major influencing factors that need to be controlled and optimized for fabricating high-quality electrospun products. Because of its versatility, different types of fibers (surface porous, hollow, core-shell structured, nanocomposite, etc.) and fibrous structures (nonwoven, aligned fiber, multilayered, etc.) can be made. Some electrospinning techniques are particularly attractive for biomedical engineering applications. For example, emulsion electrospinning, which can produce core-shell structured fibers, can be employed to encapsulate growth factors for protecting their bioactivity during fiber fabrication and for providing controlled release of growth factors for enhancing the regeneration of human body tissues. This chapter introduces the principle and techniques of electrospinning, discusses materials and influencing factors in electrospinning and for the morphology and structures of electrospun nanofibers, shows how advanced electrospinning techniques are developed and used, and presents biomedical applications of electrospun nanofibers and nanofibrous structures.