Book of Abstract of Electrospinning for High Performance Sensing Workshop

Preface The first International Workshop on Electrospinning for High Performance Sensing (EHPS) has been organized by the Institute of Atmospheric Pollution Research of the CNR (CNR-IIA) and held in Rome on April 29-30, 2014 as a part of a European Concerted Research Action, designed as COST MP1206 and entitled "Electrospun Nano-fibres for bio inspired composite materials and innovative industrial applications". Electrospinning is a very flexible and not expensive technology, thus resulting particularly attractive for designing micro-nanostructured sensors. The technology allows an easy integration of long fibres (both organics and inorganics) with microcircuits in different configurations and on several substrates. Sensitivity, detection limits, response time and selectivity of each nanofibrous sensor can be enhanced by tuning the porosity of fibres and layers (through the orchestration of different parameters in electrospinning), as well as by performing post-treatment procedures. Some recent and encouraging results reported in literature, ranging from a very high sensitivity to extreme operating conditions, confirmed a multitude of supplies. Despite of these amazing and industrially attractive properties for sensors manufacturing, electrospinning technology is still not widespread among nanotechnologies for sensors. The workshop has been intended to be the first one of a series of forthcoming meetings devoted to share and spread novel ideas for innovative and more attractive sensors. Together with world-renowned scientists, several companies and young researchers from all over the world joined the workshop. After the opening, highlighting the general industrial potentials of electrospinning, the potentials and limitations of such a technology in the sensor market have been discussed by both scientists and enterprises. In other presentations, mathematical models have been proposed to control the electrospinning process in designing and manufacturing high performing materials for several applications, such as health and environmental monitoring, security, food quality, etc. Electroactive and optical properties of the fibers have also been described, focusing on single fibers, 3D fabrics of polymers, polymer blends, nanocomposites and metal-oxides, as well as on different types of structures (hollow-fibers, core-shell) and on different functionalization. Several strategies in technical customisation of the procedure have been proposed and described by scientists to obtain differently performing fibrous structures. Other issues of the workshop have focused on the state of the art of nanosensors, and the description of materials, methods and advanced technologies to design and construct a plethora of functionalized nanofibres with different features suitable for sensing. The main subjects presented in the workshop and concerning chemical and physical sensors and biosensors based on electrospinning, and their related sensor market prospects, will be collected in a book edited by Springer entitled "Electrospinning for high performance Sensors".