Materials and Electro-Mechanical and Biomedical Devices Based on Nanofibers

The book is interwoven according to the intrinsic logics of modern most important applications of electrospun nanofibers. It discusses such application-oriented nanofibers as self-healing vascular nanotextured materials, biopolymer nanofibers, soft robots and actuators based on nanofibers, biopolymer nanofiber-based triboelectric nanogenerators, metallized nanofibers, and heaters and sensors based on them. It also includes such topics as the injectable nanofibrous biomaterials, fibrous hemostatic agents and their interaction with blood, as well as electrospun nanofibers for face-mask applications. The book also details polyelectrolytes-based complex nanofibers and their use as actuators. It also covers drug release facilitated by polyelectrolytes-based complex nanofibers. The fundamental aspects of electrospinning of polymer nanofibers discussed in the final part of the book link them to the applications described in the preceding chapters. Such topics as polymer solution preparation and their rheological properties, e.g., viscoelasticity and the related spinnability, the electrical conductivity of polymer solutions, and the cascade of the physical phenomena resulting in formation of nanofibers encompass the experimental aspects. Also, the general quasi-1D equations used for modeling of formation of electrospun polymer nanofibers, and the numerical aspects of their solution are discussed in detail, including such modeling-driven applications as nanofiber alignment by electric focusing fields.