Electrospinning is a versatile and viable technique for generating ultrathin fibers. Remarkable progress has been made with regard to the development of electrospinning methods and engineering of electrospun nanofibers to suit or enable various applications. We aim to provide a comprehensive overview of electrospinning, including the principle, methods, materials, and applications. We begin with a brief introduction to the early history of electrospinning, followed by discussion of its principle and typical apparatus. We then discuss its renaissance over the past two decades as a powerful technology for the production of nanofibers with diversified compositions, structures, and properties. Afterward, we discuss the applications of electrospun nanofibers, including their use as "smart" mats, filtration membranes, catalytic supports, energy harvesting/conversion/storage components, and photonic and electronic devices, as well as biomedical scaffolds. We highlight the most relevant and recent advances related to the applications of electrospun nanofibers by focusing on the most representative examples. We also offer perspectives on the challenges, opportunities, and new directions for future development. At the end, we discuss approaches to the scale-up production of electrospun nanofibers and briefly discuss various types of commercial products based on electrospun nanofibers that have found widespread use in our everyday life.

Electrospinning and Electrospun Nanofibers: Methods, Materials, and Applications

Detection of hazardous volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by metal oxide nanostructures-based gas sensors: A review

This review highlights recent advances towards non-invasive and continuous glucose monitoring devices, with a particular focus placed on monitoring glucose concentrations in alternative physiological fluids to blood.

Glucose Sensing for Diabetes Monitoring: Recent Developments.

Biosensors with high sensitivity, selectivity and a low limit of detection, reaching nano/picomolar concentrations of biomolecules, are important to the medical sciences and healthcare industry for evaluating physiological and metabolic parameters. Over the last decade, different nanomaterials have been exploited to design highly efficient biosensors for the detection of analyte biomolecules. The discovery of graphene has spectacularly accelerated research on fabricating low-cost electrode materials because of its unique physical properties, including high specific surface area, high carrier mobility, high electrical conductivity, flexibility, and optical transparency. Graphene and its oxygenated derivatives, including graphene oxide (GO) and reduced graphene oxide (rGO), are becoming an important class of nanomaterials in the field of biosensors. The presence of oxygenated functional groups makes GO nanosheets strongly hydrophilic, facilitating chemical functionalization. Graphene, GO and rGO nanosheets can be easily combined with various types of inorganic nanoparticles, including metals, metal oxides, semiconducting nanoparticles, quantum dots, organic polymers and biomolecules, to create a diverse range of graphene-based nanocomposites with enhanced sensitivity for biosensor applications. This review summarizes the advances in two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) graphene-based nanocomposites as emerging electrochemical and fluorescent biosensing platforms for the detection of a wide range of biomolecules with enhanced sensitivity, selectivity and a low limit of detection. The biofunctionalization and nanocomposite formation processes of graphene-based materials and their unique properties, surface functionalization, enzyme immobilization strategies, covalent immobilization, physical adsorption, biointeractions and direct electron transfer (DET) processes are discussed in connection with the design and fabrication of biosensors. The enzymatic and nonenzymatic reactions on graphene-based nanocomposite surfaces for glucose- and cholesterol-related electrochemical biosensors are analyzed. This review covers a very broad range of graphene-based electrochemical and fluorescent biosensors for the detection of glucose, cholesterol, hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), nucleic acids (DNA/RNA), genes, enzymes, cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP), dopamine (DA), ascorbic acid (AA), uric acid (UA), cancer biomarkers, pathogenic microorganisms, food toxins, toxic heavy metal ions, mycotoxins, and pesticides. The sensitivity and selectivity of graphene-based electrochemical and fluorescent biosensors are also examined with respect to interfering analytes present in biological systems. Finally, the future outlook for the development of graphene based biosensing technology is outlined.

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A review on graphene-based nanocomposites for electrochemical and fluorescent biosensors

Electrically–transduced sensors, with their simplicity and compatibility with standard electronic technologies, produce signals that can be efficiently acquired, processed, stored, and analyzed. Two dimensional (2D) nanomaterials, including graphene, phosphorene (BP), transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), and others, have proven to be attractive for the fabrication of high–performance electrically-transduced chemical sensors due to their remarkable electronic and physical properties originating from their 2D structure. This review highlights the advances in electrically-transduced chemical sensing that rely on 2D materials. The structural components of such sensors are described, and the underlying operating principles for different types of architectures are discussed. The structural features, electronic properties, and surface chemistry of 2D nanostructures that dictate their sensing performance are reviewed. Key advances in the application of 2D materials, from both a historical and analytical pers...

Electrically-Transduced Chemical Sensors Based on Two-Dimensional Nanomaterials

CuO nanoparticles (NPs) based graphene oxide (CuO/GO) composites with different CuO NPs loading amount as well as pure CuO NPs with different hydrothermal temperatures were synthesized using a hydrothermal method. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and Raman spectroscopy were employed to characterize the morphology and structures of our samples. The influence of hydrothermal temperature, GO sheet, and loading amount of CuO on particle size and structure of CuO was systemically investigated. The nonenzymatic biosensing properties of CuO/GO composites and CuO NPs toward glucose were studied based on glassy carbon electrode (GCE). The sensing properties of CuO NPs were improved after loading on GO sheets. The CuO/GO composites with saturated loading of the CuO NPs exhibited the best nonenzymatic biosensing behavior. It exhibited a sensitivity of 262.52 μA mM–1 cm–2 to glucose with a 0.69 μM detection limit (S/N = 3) and a linear range from 2.79 ...

Synthesis of graphene oxide based CuO nanoparticles composite electrode for highly enhanced nonenzymatic glucose detection.

A series of In2O3/Au nanorods (NRs) were fabricated and characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscope (TEM), X–ray diffractometer (XRD) and X–ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The length to diameter ratios of In2O3/Au NRs was periodically modulated in the range of 2.9–4.5 through controlling the initial content of indium salt and reaction time. Their gas sensing properties to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were carefully studied and then applied in exhaled breath detection. The results demonstrate that In2O3/Au NRs gas sensor can effectively detect acetone at 250 °C and ethanol at 400 °C. The corresponding actual detection limit is as low as 0.1 ppm to acetone and 0.05 ppm to ethanol, respectively. Moreover, by using humidity compensation method, In2O3/Au NRs gas sensor can clearly distinguish the acetone and ethanol biomarkers in human breath. The main reason of the enhanced gas sensing properties was attributed to the “spillover effects” between Au and In2O3 NRs. The excellent sensing performance indicates that In2O3/Au NRs is a promising functional material to actual application in monitoring and detecting diabetes and safe driving area in a noninvasive and more accurate way.

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Preparation and Gas Sensing Properties of In2O3/Au Nanorods for Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds in Exhaled Breath.

Three-dimensional (3D) porous ZnO–CuO hierarchical nanocomposites (HNCs) nonenzymatic glucose electrodes with different thicknesses were fabricated by coelectrospinning and compared with 3D mixed ZnO/CuO nanowires (NWs) and pure CuO NWs electrodes. The structural characterization revealed that the ZnO–CuO HNCs were composed of the ZnO and CuO mixed NWs trunk (~200 nm), whose outer surface was attached with small CuO nanoparticles (NPs). Moreover, a good synergetic effect between CuO and ZnO was confirmed. The nonenzymatic biosensing properties of as prepared 3D porous electrodes based on fluorine doped tin oxide (FTO) were studied and the results indicated that the sensing properties of 3D porous ZnO–CuO HNCs electrodes were significantly improved and depended strongly on the thickness of the HNCs. At an applied potential of + 0.7 V, the optimum ZnO–CuO HNCs electrode presented a high sensitivity of 3066.4 μAmM−1cm−2, the linear range up to 1.6 mM, and low practical detection limit of 0.21 μM. It also showed outstanding long term stability, good reproducibility, excellent selectivity and accurate measurement in real serum sample. The formation of special hierarchical heterojunction and the well-constructed 3D structure were the main reasons for the enhanced nonenzymatic biosensing behavior.

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Ultrasensitive non-enzymatic glucose sensor based on three-dimensional network of ZnO-CuO hierarchical nanocomposites by electrospinning

In this work, we present a novel ascorbic acid (AA) sensor applied to the detection of AA in human sera and pharmaceuticals. A series of Au nanoparticles (NPs) and graphene oxide sheets (Au NP/GO) composites were successfully synthesized by reduction of gold (III) using sodium citrate. Then the Au NP/GO composites were used to construct nonenzymatic electrodes in practical AA measurement. The electrode that has the best performance presents attractive analytical features, such as a low working potential of +0.15 V, a high sensitivity of 101.86 μA mM−1 cm−2 to AA, a low detection limit of 100 nM, good reproducibility and excellent selectivity. And more,it was also employed to accurately and practically detect AA in human serum and clinical vitamin C tablet with the existence of some food additive. The enhanced AA electrochemical properties of the Au NP/GO modified electrode in our work can be attributed to the improvement of electroactive surface area of Au NPs and the synergistic effect from the combination of Au NPs and GO sheets. This work shows that the Au NP/GO/GCEs hold the prospect for sensitive and selective determination of AA in practical clinical application.

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Synthesis of Au/Graphene Oxide Composites for Selective and Sensitive Electrochemical Detection of Ascorbic Acid

A simple and accurate label–free amperometric immunosensor for α–fetoprotein (AFP) detection is developed based on gold nanorods (GNRs) with different aspect ratio and compared with gold particles (GNPs). The positively charged GNRs and GNPs due to the surface immobilized cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) can adsorb the negatively charged AFP antibody (Ab) directly. The presence of the GNRs not only enhanced the immobilized amount of biomolecules, but also improved the electrochemical properties of the immunosensor. With the aid of GNRs, the electrochemical signal was greatly enhanced in comparison with GNPs. Under optimal conditions, the proposed immunosensor could detect AFP in a linear range from 0.1 to 200 ng/mL with a detection limit of 0.04 ng/mL (signal–to–noise ratio = 3), and it also possessed good reproducibility and storage stability. Moreover, the detection of AFP in five human serum samples also showed satisfactory accuracy. The proposed methodology was potentially attractive for clinical immunoassay.

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Chunyang Zhou

Papers

Synthesis of graphene oxide based CuO nanoparticles composite electrode for highly enhanced nonenzymatic glucose detection.

Preparation and Gas Sensing Properties of In2O3/Au Nanorods for Detection of Volatile Organic Compounds in Exhaled Breath.

Ultrasensitive non-enzymatic glucose sensor based on three-dimensional network of ZnO-CuO hierarchical nanocomposites by electrospinning

Synthesis of Au/Graphene Oxide Composites for Selective and Sensitive Electrochemical Detection of Ascorbic Acid

A sensitive label-free amperometric immunosensor for alpha-fetoprotein based on gold nanorods with different aspect ratio.