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Nanofibers and Nanotextured Materials: Their Multipurpose Applications

A special issue of Molecules (ISSN 1420-3049). This special issue belongs to the section "Materials Chemistry".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2023) | Viewed by 2389

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Department of Chemistry, College of Science, Albaha University, P.O. Box 1988, Al-Baha 65799, Saudi Arabia
Interests: synthesis and characterization of nanofibers; nanostructured materials (1D, 2D, 3D, quantum dots, nanocrystals, nanoflowers, etc.); organic– inorganic nanocomposites and hetero-structure materials and their applications in environmental remediation, energy, and storage

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Guest Editor
Department of Biology, College of Science, Albaha University, P.O. Box 1988, Albaha 65799, Saudi Arabia
Interests: design and synthesis of biocompatible composite nanofibrous scaffolds via electrospinning processes; synthesis of hybrid materials, biomimetic materials and nanoparticles; physicochemical characterization of biomaterials or materials; diverse biological applications such as cell culture, tissue engineering and biomedical and antimicrobial synthesized materials
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues

It is with great delight that we announce the publication of this Special Issue, Nanofibers and Nanotextured Materials: Their Multipurpose Applications, which will address the most recent technical applications of nanofibers and nanotextured materials in diverse chemical and biological fields.

Nanostructured materials offer enormous potential for the development of electrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies, such as lithium-ion batteries and fuel cells, in light of the expanding worldwide need for energy and escalating environmental concerns. Moreover, nanotextured materials have incredible applications in medicine and biomedical sciences. An easy-to-use method called electrospinning practices the electrostatic attraction of opposing surface charges to constantly extract nanofibers from a viscoelastic fluid. Such nanofibers' inner or outer molecular species or nanoparticles can be further functionalized during or after an electrospinning process. In addition, the alignment, stacking, or folding of electrospun nanofibers may be altered to create ordered arrays or hierarchical structures. Nanofiber webs' characterization, the techniques for evaluating them, their market value, and their potential future uses are continuously discussed in current times.

The performance of nanofibers is often achieved by the incorporation of pharmaceuticals, chemicals, bioactive substances, nanoparticles, functional materials, or the arrangement of specific surface features. Electrospun nanofibers are ideal for a wide range of applications owing to their aforementioned characteristics. Drug delivery, air filtration, water purification, heterogeneous catalysis, environmental protection, smart textiles, surface coating, energy harvesting, conversion and storage, the encapsulation of bioactive species, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, cancer applications, fuel cells, photocatalytics, and lithium-ion batteries are some of the intriguing uses for nanofiber webs.

This Special Issue will present many potential submissions on various scientific subjects. Original research papers, review articles, and short communications are welcomed. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (around 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website. We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Subject areas include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Nanoparticles, nanocrystals, colloids, sols, and quantum dots.
  • Green chemistry synthesis of nanotextured materials and their versatile applications.
  • Films, membranes, and coatings.
  • Nanotubes, nanowires, nanofibers, nanorods, and nanobelts.
  • Nanoporous, mesoporous, and microporous materials.
  • Nanofibers and nanotextured materials for environmental remediation.
  • Nanotextured materials for water purification.
  • Nanotextured materials for energy harvesting, conversion, and storage.
  • Nanotextured materials for catalysis applications.
  • Hierarchical structures and their applications.
  • Inorganic–organic hybrids or nanocomposites and their uses.
  • Nanofibers and nanotextured materials for food packaging.
  • Nanofibers and bioinspired materials for cell culture and tissue engineering.
  • Encapsulation of bioactive compounds in nanofibers for enhanced activity.
  • Nanofibers and nanotextured materials for medicine.
  • Drug delivery using nanofibers and nanotextured materials.
  • Polymeric, composite, and biopolymer nanofibers for biological applications.
  • Nanostructured materials for cancer therapy and diagnosis.  
  • Nanotextured materials for antimicrobial applications.

Dr. M. Shamshi Hassan
Dr. Touseef Amna
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Molecules is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • nanofibers
  • micronanofibers
  • nanoparticles
  • environmental remediation
  • photocatalysis
  • nanomedicine
  • drug delivery system
  • pharmaceuticals
  • cancer
  • energy and storage
  • nanostructures
  • nanocomposites

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 9815 KiB  
Article
Salicylic Acid Release from Syndiotactic Polystyrene Staple Fibers
by Verdiana Covelli, Antonietta Cozzolino, Paola Rizzo, Manuela Rodriquez, Vincenzo Vestuto, Alessia Bertamino, Christophe Daniel and Gaetano Guerra
Molecules 2023, 28(13), 5095; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28135095 - 29 Jun 2023
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 1120
Abstract
Films and fibers of syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS), being amorphous or exhibiting nanoporous crystalline (NC) or dense crystalline phases, were loaded with salicylic acid (SA), a relevant non-volatile antimicrobial molecule. In the first section of the paper, sPS/SA co-crystalline (CC) δ form is characterized, [...] Read more.
Films and fibers of syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS), being amorphous or exhibiting nanoporous crystalline (NC) or dense crystalline phases, were loaded with salicylic acid (SA), a relevant non-volatile antimicrobial molecule. In the first section of the paper, sPS/SA co-crystalline (CC) δ form is characterized, mainly by wide angle X-ray diffraction (WAXD) patterns and polarized Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra. The formation of sPS/SA δ CC phases allows the preparation of sPS fibers even with a high content of the antibacterial guest, which is also retained after repeated washing procedures at 65 °C. A preparation procedure starting from amorphous fibers is particularly appropriate because involves a direct formation of the CC δ form and a simultaneous axial orientation. The possibility of tuning drug amount and release kinetics, by simply selecting suitable crystalline phases of a commercially available polymer, makes sPS fibers possibly useful for many applications. In particular, fibers with δ CC forms, which retain SA molecules in their crystalline phases, could be useful for antimicrobial textiles and fabrics. Fibers with the dense γ form which easily release SA molecules, because they are only included in their amorphous phases, could be used for promising SA-based preparations for antibacterial purposes in food processing and preservation and public health. Finally, using a cell-based assay system and antibacterial tests, we investigated the cellular activity, toxicity and antimicrobial properties of amorphous, δ CC forms and dense γ form of sPS fibers loaded with different contents of SA. Full article
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14 pages, 4476 KiB  
Article
Levocetirizine-Loaded Electrospun Fibers from Water-Soluble Polymers: Encapsulation and Drug Release
by Lan Yi, Lu Cui, Linrui Cheng, János Móczó and Béla Pukánszky
Molecules 2023, 28(10), 4188; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28104188 - 19 May 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1021
Abstract
Electrospun fibers containing levocetirizine, a BCS III drug, were prepared from three water-soluble polymers, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Fiber-spinning technology was optimized for each polymer separately. The polymers contained 10 wt% of the active component. An amorphous drug [...] Read more.
Electrospun fibers containing levocetirizine, a BCS III drug, were prepared from three water-soluble polymers, hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). Fiber-spinning technology was optimized for each polymer separately. The polymers contained 10 wt% of the active component. An amorphous drug was homogeneously distributed within the fibers. The solubility of the drug in the polymers used was limited, with a maximum of 2.0 wt%, but it was very large in most of the solvents used for fiber spinning and in the dissolution media. The thickness of the fibers was uniform and the presence of the drug basically did not influence it at all. The fiber diameters were in the same range, although somewhat thinner fibers could be prepared from PVA than from the other two polymers. The results showed that the drug was amorphous in the fibers. Most of the drug was located within the fibers, probably as a separate phase; the encapsulation efficiency proved to be 80–90%. The kinetics of the drug release were evaluated quantitatively by the Noyes–Whitney model. The released drug was approximately the same for all the polymers under all conditions (pH), and it changed somewhere between 80 and 100%. The release rate depended both on the type of polymer and pH and varied between 0.1 and 0.9 min−1. Consequently, the selection of the carrier polymer allowed for the adjustment of the release rate according to the requirements, thus justifying the use of electrospun fibers as carrier materials for levocetirizine. Full article
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