This is the published version: Lin, Tong 2011, Nanofibers ‐ production, properties and functional applications InTech, Rijeka, Croatia. Available from Deakin Research Online: http://hdl.handle.net/10536/DRO/DU:30044990 Reproduced with the kind permission of the copyright owner. Copyright : 2011, InTech NANOFIBERS – PRODUCTION, PROPERTIES AND FUNCTIONAL APPLICATIONS Edited by Tong Lin Nanofibers – Production, Properties and Functional Applications Edited by Tong Lin Published by InTech Janeza Trdine 9, 51000 Rijeka, Croatia Copyright © 2011 InTech All chapters are Open Access articles distributed under the Creative Commons Non Commercial Share Alike Attribution 3.0 license, which permits to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work in any medium, so long as the original work is properly cited. 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Used under license from Shutterstock.com First published October, 2011 Printed in Croatia A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected] Nanofibers – Production, Properties and Functional Applications, Edited by Tong Lin p. cm. ISBN 978-953-307-420-7 free online editions of InTech Books and Journals can be found at www.intechopen.com Contents Preface IX Part 1 Production and Assembly 1 Chapter 1 Industrial Production Technology for Nanofibers 3 Stanislav Petrík Chapter 2 Needleless Electrospinning: Developments and Performances 17 Haitao Niu, Xungai Wang and Tong Lin Chapter 3 Electrospinning of Metal Doped Alumina Nanofibers for Catalyst Applications 37 Sneha Swaminathan and George Chase Chapter 4 Chitin Nanofibers with a Uniform Width of 10 to 20 nm and Their Transparent Nanocomposite Films 59 Shinsuke Ifuku, Antonio Norio Nakagaito and Hiroyuki Saimoto Chapter 5 Advances in Electroactive Electrospun Nanofibers 85 Paulo H. S. Picciani, Eliton S. Medeiros, William J. Orts and Luiz H. C. Mattoso Chapter 6 Electrospun Metallic Nanofibers Fabricated by Electrospinning and Metallization 117 Kai Wei, Hae-Rim Kim, Byoung-Suhk Kim and Ick-Soo Kim Chapter 7 Preparation and Characterization and Reducing Properties of MoO3 Nano-Fibers 135 Zhao Peng Chapter 8 Electrospinning of Continuous Nanofiber Bundles and Twisted Nanofiber Yarns 153 Usman Ali, Yaqiong Zhou, Xungai Wang and Tong Lin VI Contents Part 2 Property and Characterization 175 Chapter 9 The Microstructure Characterization and the Mechanical Properties of Electrospun Polyacrylonitrile-Based Nanofibers 177 Chen Zhang, Xuejia Ding and Sizhu Wu Chapter 10 Photophysics and Photonics of Heteroepitaxial Organic Nanofibers 197 Francesco Quochi, Michele Saba, Andrea Mura and Giovanni Bongiovanni Chapter 11 Nano-Scale Reinforcing and Toughening Thermoplastics: Processing, Structure and Mechanical Properties 215 Suchart Siengchin Chapter 12 Carbon Nanofibers Reinforced Ceramic Matrix Composites 241 Pavol Hvizdoš, Viktor Puchý, Annamária Duszová and Ján Dusza Chapter 13 Carbon Nanofibers: Evaluation of Life Cycle Environmental Impacts 267 Vikas Khanna and Nikki Campion Part 3 Functional Applications 285 Chapter 14 Functional Applications of Electrospun Nanofibers 287 Jian Fang, Xungai Wang and Tong Lin Chapter 15 The Potential of Biomimetic Electrospun-Nanofibrous Scaffolds for Bone Tissue Engineering 327 Ha Na Park, Jung Bok Lee, Ho-Jin Moon, Dae Hyeok Yang and Il Keun Kwon Chapter 16 Electrospun Nanofibers in Tissue Engineering 347 Mitchell R. Ladd, Tanner K. Hill, James J. Yoo and Sang Jin Lee Chapter 17 Three-Dimensional Nanofiber Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine 373 Bit Na Lee, Jae Ho Kim, Heung Jae Chun and Moon Suk Kim Chapter 18 Incorporation of DNA into Electrospun Nanofibrous Scaffolds: Fundamental Characterization Studies and Gene Delivery 383 Michael Hadjiargyrou Contents VII Chapter 19 Nanocomposites for Vehicle Structural Applications 401 James Njuguna, Francesco Silva and Sophia Sachse Chapter 20 Filtration and Catalytic Behaviors of Titanium Silicate-1 Supported on Carbon Nanofibers for Cyclohexanone Ammoximation 435 Qian Zhao, Shiyuan Zhang, Ping Li, Weikang Yuan, Alex Chikin Yip and Xijun Hu Chapter 21 Au/TiO2 Hierarchical Nanofibers Heterostructure: Controllable Synthesis and Enhanced Photocatalytic Performances 449 Chao Pan and Li Dong Preface With the rapid development of nanoscience and nanotechnology over the last decades, great progress has been made not only in the preparation and characterization of nanomaterials, but also in their functional applications. As an important one- dimensional nanomaterial, nanofibers have extremely high specific surface area because of their small diameters, and nanofiber membranes are highly porous with excellent pore interconnectivity. These unique characteristics plus the functionalities from the materials themselves impart nanofibers with a number of novel properties for applications in areas as various as biomedical engineering, wound healing, drug delivery and release control, catalyst and enzyme carriers, filtration, environment protection, composite reinforcement, sensors, optics, energy harvest and storage, and many others. More and more emphasis has recently been placed on large-scale nanofiber production, the key technology to the wide usages of nanofibers in practice. Tremendous efforts have been made on producing nanofibers from special materials. Concerns have been raised to the safety issue of nanofibrous materials. This book is a compilation of contributions made by experts who specialize in their chosen field. It is grouped into three sections composed of twenty-one chapters, providing an up-to-date coverage of nanofiber preparation, properties and functional applications. I am deeply appreciative of all the authors and have no doubt that their contribution will be a useful resource for anyone associated with the discipline of nanofibers. Dr. Tong Lin Centre for Material and Fibre Innovation, Deakin University Australia Part 1 Production and Assembly 1 Industrial Production Technology for Nanofibers Stanislav Petrík ELMARCO s.r.o., Czech Republic 1. Introduction Electrospinning methods for creating nanofibers from polymer solutions have been known for decades (Kirichenko et al., 2007, Ramakrishna et a., 2005). The nozzle-less (free liquid surface) technology opened new economically viable possibilities to produce nanofiber layers in a mass industrial scale, and was developed in the past decade (Jirsak et al., 2005). Hundreds of laboratories are currently active in the research of electrospinning process, nanofiber materials, and their applications. Nanofiber nonwoven-structured layers are ideal for creating novel composite materials by combining them with usual nonwovens. The most developed application of this kind of materials is air filtration (Jaroszczyk et al., 2009). Liquid filters and separators are being developed intensively with very encouraging results. Also well known are several bio-medical applications utilizing nanofiber materials, often from biocompatible/degradable polymers like PLA, gelatine, collagen, chitosan. These developing applications include wound care, skin-, vessel-, bone- scaffolds, drug delivery systems and many others (Proceedings, 2009). Inorganic/ceramic nanofibers attract growing interest as materials for energy generation and storage (solar and fuel cells, batteries), and catalytic materials (Kavan & Grätzel, 2002, Duchoslav & Rubacek, 2008, Rubacek & Duchoslav, 2008, Bognitzki et al., 2001, Guan et al., 2003). To fully explore the extraordinary number of application opportunities of nanofibers, the availability of reliable industrial-level production technology is essential. This chapter intends to demonstrate that the technology has matured to this stage. 2. Theoretical background The electrospinning process is an interesting and well-characterized physical phenomenon and has been an attractive subject for theoretical investigations of several groups (Bognitzki et al., 2001, Taylor & Van Dyke, 1969, Doshi & Reneker, 1995, Thompson et al., 2007, Shin et al., 2001, Yu et al., 2006, Hohman et al., 2008). Most work concentrates on the essentials of the process – the nanofiber formation from a liquid polymer jet in a (longitudinal) electric field. It has been theoretically described and experimentally proven that the dominant mechanism is whipping elongation occurring due to bending instability (Thompson et al., 2007, Yu et al., 2006, Hohman et al., 2008). Secondary splitting of the liquid polymer streams can occur also (Kirichenko et al., 2007 ), but the final thinning process is elongation. In Figure 1, the schematic of bending mechanism derived from physical model (a) is compared with a stroboscopic snapshot (b) (Reneker, 2009). 4 Nanofibers –