Coaxial electrospinning and emulsion electrospinning of core-shell fibers

The mini-review is devoted to coaxial electrospinning (co-electrospinning, emulsion electrospinning), a group of novel methods for making core-shell nanofibers and hollow nanotubes. The physical aspects of the process are described in brief, in particular, its modeling and possible drawbacks of the process resulting in formation of fibers without a long intact core. After that the main applications of co-electrospinning are considered. They include drug release, encapsulation of different biologically active compounds, cell scaffolds, formation of nanotubes, and nanofluidics. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.