Long Path Towards to Success in Electrospun Nanofiber Yarn Production Since 1930’s: A Critical Review

Abstract

Direct conversion of nanofibers into a yarn formed by electrospinning has begun to draw attention recently while pioneering attempts in fact go back to 1930s. Once nanofiber yarns are spun successfully by electrospinning, obviously, this would open new gates for many different applications. However, this is still a challenging task and there is no system accepted universally yet. There are more than 20 different approaches available so far but with serious limitations. In this review, they were categorized as (i) systems for production of parallel bundle of nanofibers and (ii) systems for production of twisted nanofiber yarns, presenting potential applicability of each with a critical point of view. The results show that some of the attempts mainly present basic conceptual ideas only. There are some works to produce real twisted nanofiber yarns continuously while mainly funnel, disc, or ring collectors have been used as the twisting element. However, there is limited information regarding stability of spinning system or control of yarn properties. This review also analyses the technical properties of electrospun nanofiber yarns summarizing the available data in terms of yarn properties such as fiber fineness, twist, production speed, mechanical properties, polymer types, and other important parameters available.

Electrospun strong, bioactive, and bioabsorbable silk fibroin/poly (L-lactic-acid) nanoyarns for constructing advanced nanotextile tissue scaffolds

“…As known that, the native ECMs existed in plenty of tissues, such as tendon [ 9 , 10 ],blood vessel [ 11 , 12 ], nerve [ 13 , 14 ], as well as muscle [ 15 , 16 ], possess highly aligned nanofibrous structures, which are deemed to be an extremely pivotal factor for controlling and regulating the formation of anisotropic architecture in the corresponding tissues. Although there are several approaches that have been reported to directly assemble electrospun nanofibers into nanoyarns, it is still a huge challenge to develop the nanoyarns with highly aligned nanofibrous structure and receivable yarn evenness [ [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] ].…”

Spinning the Future: The Convergence of Nanofiber Technologies and Yarn Fabrication

“…However, nanofiber-based yarns have not been systematically evaluated because the correlation between nanofiber spinning and yarn twisting has not been clearly defined. Existing literature predominantly focuses on traditional electrospinning, carbon nanotube and fabrication, and nanomaterials yarn preparation methods. − Other nanofiber fabrication methods should be addressed and correlated to yarn twisting.…”

Continuous Yarn Electrospinning

“…The fibers accumulate on the collector in a random orientation, resulting in a nonwoven mat. There had so far been several reviews on the topic of yarn electrospinning [12][13][14][15], though none of them specifically discussed the problem of direct comparison between the various methods. If yarn electrospinning is to be a method that is widely adopted, researchers should be able to decide which methods are the most suitable for their own application based on certain parameters such as production speed, fiber fineness, yarn fineness, and fiber mechanical properties.…”