Recent Advances in Needleless Electrospinning of Ultrathin Fibers: From Academia to Industrial Production

Abstract

Electrospinning (e-spinning) has been extensively explored as a simple, versatile, and cost-effective method in preparing ultrathin fibers from a wide variety of materials. Electrospun (e-spun) ultrathin fibers are now widely used in tissue scaffold, wound dressing, energy harvesting and storage, environment engineering, catalyst, and textile. However, compared with conventional fiber industry, one major challenge associated with e-spinning technology is its production rate. Over the last decade, compared with conventional needle e-spinning, needleless e-spinning has emerged as the most efficient strategy for large-scale production of ultrathin fibers. For example, rolling cylinder and stationary wire as spinnerets have been commercialized successfully for significantly improving throughput of e-spun fibers. The significant advancements in needleless e-spinning approaches, including spinneret structures, productivity, and fiber quality are reviewed. In addition, some striking examples of innovative device designs toward higher throughput, as well as available industrial-scale equipment and commercial applications in the market are highlighted.

The formation of ultrafine polyamide 6 nanofiber membranes with needleless electrospinning for air filtration

“…Recently, a needleless electrospinning technique has been developed for forming ultrafine and continuous polymer nanofibers . Needleless electrospinning has emerged as a technique capable of generating ultrafine fibers in the absence of needle‐like spinnerets, providing benefits including eliminating the problem of clogging and increasing the fiber productivity sharply.…”

Electrospinning of circumferentially aligned polymer nanofibers floating on rotating water collector

“…In the past decades, various nanofiber generation parts have been developed to increase the productivity significantly. A series of needleless electrospinning systems constituted the most representative technologies. Nanofiber yields in these systems can be increased to tens or even hundreds of times more than those in a conventional electrospinning system .…”

Needleless Electrospinning and Electrospraying of Mixture of Polymer and Aerogel Particles on Textile

“…In needleless electrospinning method, the needle is replaced with roller, ball, disc, cylinder, beaded wire, and so on. All these needleless electrospinning methods can be divided primarily into two groups: rotary and stationary spinneret needleless electrospinning [3]. Rotary needleless electrospinning includes rotary cylinder, disc, ball, spiral wire coil, splashing spinneret, cone, edge of metal plate, rotating roller, bowel edge, rotary beaded chain [4][5][6][7][8][9], and so on.…”