(188f) Electrospinning for the Fabrication of Electrochemical Sensors

The use of exclusive nanostructure has gotten considerable importance in the biosensing and biomedical research. Lately, the electrospinning has drawn great attention in the development of nanofiber-based biosensor platforms. Electrospinning has emerged as an efficient nanofabrication technique for manufacturing of polymer, metal and metal-oxide nanofibers. Electrospinning emerges to be the ultimate technique to generate biocompatible nanofibers, such as biopolymers, carbon, ZnO, TiO₂ and NiO, etc. for the use in highly sensitive biosensing. Biosensors with enhanced sensitivity are becoming appealing for the sensing of biomolecules, and in particular, for glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride, and low-density lipoprotein sensing. Electrospinning is capable of depositing three-dimensional porous nanofibrous network on the surface of transducers in the sensor platforms, which offers high surface area, large global pore volume, predictable pore size distribution, and tunable interconnected porosity. These characters of nanofibers can add further desired functionalities to a sensor for the detection of bio-analytes in a specific environment, where efficient mass transport is necessary towards the electrode surface. Based on the distinctive properties of electrospun nanofibers in the nanoscale that differentiate them from other nanostructure created by other existing methods, we describe here the knowledge on nanofibers suitable for electrochemical biosensing applications, including structure and property characterization. Moreover, information on polymers together with carbons, metal and metal-oxides precursors and their processing conditions for the electrospinning of metal-oxide nanofibers is briefly described. Additional relevant issues regarding the research challenges, technology limitations, and future trends are also deliberated.