Polymeric and Modified Nanofibers and Its Application

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 semiconductive 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. Electrospinning or electro-static spinning is the most considered technique for fabrication of nanofibers. Synthetic and biopolymers, polymer blends, melts, nano-particle or drug-impregnated polymers, and ceramic precursors have been successfully used to produce electro-spun nanofibers. 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. Keywords: Nanofiber, Polymer, Surface