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Coelectrospinning and emulsion electrospinning are two main methods for preparing core-sheath electrospun nanofibers in a cost-effective and efficient manner. Here, physical phenomena and the effects of solution and processing parameters on the coaxial fibers are introduced. Coaxial fibers with specific drugs encapsulated in the core can exhibit a sustained and controlled release. Their exhibited high surface area and three-dimensional nanofibrous network allows the electrospun fibers to resemble native extracellular matrices. These features of the nanofibers show that they have great potential in drug delivery and tissue engineering applications. Proteins, growth factors, antibiotics, and many other agents have been successfully encapsulated into coaxial fibers for drug delivery. A main advantage of the core-sheath design is that after the process of electrospinning and release, these drugs remain bioactive due to the protection of the sheath. Applications of coaxial fibers as scaffolds for tissue engineering include bone, cartilage, cardiac tissue, skin, blood vessels and nervous tissue, among others. A synopsis of novel coaxial electrospun fibers, discussing their applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering, is covered pertaining to proteins, growth factors, antibiotics, and other drugs and applications in the fields of bone, cartilage, cardiac, skin, blood vessel, and nervous tissue engineering, respectively. WIREs Nanomed Nanobiotechnol 2016, 8:654-677. doi: 10.1002/wnan.1391 For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website.

Conductive polymer nanocomposites have found applications in advanced devices: organic light emission diodes, organic photovoltaics, electrochromic devices, and others.

The tube-in-tube reactor is a convenient method for implementing gas/liquid reactions on the microscale, in which pressurized gas permeates through a Teflon AF-2400 membrane and reacts with substrates in liquid phase. Here we present the first quantitative models for analytically and numerically computing gas and substrate concentration profiles within the tube-in-tube reactor. The model accurately predicts mass transfer performance in good agreement with experimental measurement. The scaling behavior and reaction limitations of the tube-in-tube reactor are predicted by modeling and compared with gas/liquid micro- and minireactors. The presented model yields new insights into the scalability and applicability of the tube-in-tube reactor.

Nitrogen-enriched porous carbon nanofiber networks (NPCNFs) were successfully prepared by using lowcost melamine and polyacrylonitrile as precursors via electrospinning followed by carbonization and NH 3 treatments. The NPCNFs exhibited inter-connected nanofibrous morphology with a large specific surface area, well-developed microporous structure, relatively high-level nitrogen doping and great amount of pyridinic nitrogen. As free-standing new anode materials in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs), the NPCNFs showed ultrahigh capacity, good cycle performance and superior rate capability with a reversible capacity of as high as 1323 mA h g À1 at a current density of 50 mA g À1 . These attractive characteristics make the NPCNFs materials very promising anode candidates for high-performance LIBs and, as free-standing electrode materials to be used in other energy conversion and storage devices.