Nanofiber technology for health: Challenges and opportunities

HIST 3

Benjamin Chu, bchu@notes.cc.sunysb.edu and Benjamin S. Hsiao, bhsiao@notes.cc.sunysb.edu. Department of Chemistry, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3400
In recent years, there has been an explosive growth of research activities to explore the development of electro-spinning technology and its applications. Over 600 scientific papers and 70 patents have been published. The majority of current electro-spinning related studies are concerned with the generation of new nano-structured materials and their applications, e.g., biological and clothing membranes, aerosol filters, optical and chemical sensors. Recently, advances in electro-spinning and related technologies have been made. The non-woven structure has unique features, including interconnected pores, very large surface-to-volume ratio, and ease of surface modifications, which enable such scaffolds to have many biomedical and industrial applications. In this lecture, we will provide an overview of the challenges and the opportunities of this unique technology, including one example in biomedical applications.