Sustainable Nanotechnology

11 Eco‐friendly, Biodegradable, and Biocompatible Electrospun Nanofiber Membranes and Applications

Sylvia Thomas, Bianca Seufert, William Serrano-Garcia, Manopriya Devisetty, Ridita Khan, Kavyashree Puttananjegowda, and Norma Alcantar

University of South Florida (USF) College of Engineering, USF, Tampa, FL, USA

11.1 Introduction

Materials are imperative in sustaining the environment, the economy, human life, and society, and as new materials are explored for nanotechnology, there is a direct correlation to sustainability. Sustainable materials can be classified as eco‐friendly, “green,” biodegradable, biocompatible, or biobased, ranging from inorganic to organic materials, and are used to produce a vast array of nanostructures (fibers, tubes, spheres, wires, particles, ribbons, coaxials/multiaxials, membranes/meshes, etc.) for the development of transformative technology. Over the past several years, breakthroughs in polymeric nanofiber membrane (PNM) technology have gained substantial interest by industry, government, and academia for the need of clean energy, energy harvesting, point‐of‐care testing platforms, clean water, disease prevention, electronic miniaturization, and the Internet‐of‐Things (IoT). PNM technology is leading the way for sustainable nanotechnology that is environmentally conscious, recyclable, renewable, biodegradable, biocompatible, and cost effective.

Electrospinning has emerged as the process of choice for the fabrication of PNM's technology due to ...