Experimental methods in chemical engineering: Electrospinning

Electrospinning produces micro‐ and nanofibres by forcing a polymeric solution through a fine needle in an electric field that produces a filament that accumulates onto a collector plate. The fibre morphology depends on solution properties, distance between needle and plate, feed rate, and electric field intensity. Membranes, films, capsules, and multilayer fibres are possible by introducing multiple needles, changing the plate configuration, moving the plate, or intermittent feeding. Its versatility, simplicity, and low‐cost has accelerated the adoption of this technology for adsorbents, catalysts, membranes, gas separation, electronic devices, electrodes in supercapacitors, drug delivery, and nanomedicine/tissue engineering. Since 1997, Web of Science Core Collection has indexed over 40,000 articles with electrospinning as a keyword in the ‘Topic’ search field. Multidisciplinary materials science, polymer science, nanoscience nanotechnology, and applied physics are the scientific disciplines that publish the most articles related to electrospinning, while chemical engineering is ranked 10th. The main clusters of research are: (1) membranes, fibres, polymer morphology, and medical type applications (scaffolds, drug delivery, antimicrobial); (2) nanoparticles/composites, photocatalysis, and graphene; (3) membranes, ultrafiltration, desalination, and carbon nanotubes; and, (4) waste water treatment, adsorption, and heavy metals. Here we highlight research conducted over the past decades and remaining challenges, including developing industrial scale‐up guidance, replacing/reducing hazardous and costly solvents, and devising theoretical models to determine optimal operating parameters.