Multifluid electrospinning for the generation of complex nanostructures

New nanostructure means new nanotechnology and nanoscience. The need of complex nanostructure-based advanced functional nanomaterials has promoted the appearance of several kinds of multifluid electrospinning processes, such as tri-axial electrospinning, quad-fluid coaxial electrospinning, tri-fluid side-by-side electrospinning, and coaxial electrospinning with a side-by-side core. These multifluid processes can greatly expand the capability of electrospinning in generating new types of nanostructures with different organization manner of the inner parts, and from both spinnable and unspinnable working fluids. The key elements for conducting a multifluid electrospinning lie in a well-designed spinneret, compatibility of the working fluids, and special operational parameters. The complex nanostructures can be created through direct electrospinning of multiple fluids, through after-treatment of the electrospun products, and through ingenious design of the components, compositions and their spatial distributions as well. This article provides a simple review on the most recent publications about the multifluid electrospinning processes and the corresponding complex nanostructures.