Electrospinning – 100 Years of Investigations and Still Open Questions of Web Structure Estimination

Abstract

Abstract The article presents an overview of electrospinning process development from the first investigations in the field of behaviour of liquids in an electrostatic field to the electrospinning methods and investigations in the 21st century. The article presents the history of electrospinning process development, the main problems that are solved, and also indicates the gaps in the field of standardisation of nanofibrous web structure measurement and estimation. There are a lot of works in which authors analyse influences of various parameters on the electrospinning process or on the structure of electrospun web, whereas the majority of them do not analyse the quality of structure using mathematical criteria. Such a situation leads to different conclusions and makes it impossible to compare various works by different authors. Despite numerous studies in electrospinning, investigations in the electrospun nanofibrous web estimation are not sufficient. Until now, a unique standard method for measuring and estimating the fibre diameter and web porosity has not been developed. The necessity of such a method and standards is obvious, and the lack of such a standard could have a negative influence on the electrospun product introduction into the market.