In exploring fiber-based materials, the advantages of their inner constructions and displayed wettabilities diversify their applications and especially facilitate the development of immiscible liquid separation. When considering the basis of their liquid‒phase separation properties, such fibrous materials can be employed in more abundant and novel application fields in addition to oil–water separation. This article reviews the recent progress in the development of fiber-based materials with special surface wettabilities and further explores their potential in immiscible liquid separation-related fields, such as liquid/liquid mass transfer, and explores related applications in environmental purification, resource collection, energy storage and other fields. This article also explores the underlying nature that drives the wetting performance of fibrous surfaces, extends more diversified underliquid wetting models, and fully summarizes the separation mechanism and the latest corresponding applications, opening up an avenue for identifying the significance of devisable wetting performances and developing more diversified application potentials. Finally, this review proposes current challenges and expected developments in superwetting fiber-based materials with immiscible liquid separation abilities.

Electrospinning is a straightforward and adaptable technique for creating ultrafine fibers with distinctive chemical and physical characteristics, making them widely applicable across diverse fields. The applications depend on the richness of the morphology and structure of the electrospun fibers and adjustability of the surface properties. Traditional electrospinning is a dry process, with a solid collector, which has limited control over the fiber morphology and structure. Wet electrospinning replaces the traditional solid collector with a liquid coagulation bath, which can yield fibers with porous, bending, and twisting structures. In addition, the fiber surface can be modified and functionalized to prepare continuous nanofiber yarn, which considerably improves the performance of electrospun fibers in some applications. Wet electrospinning promotes the industrial production of electrospun fibers in the textile fields. Therefore, in view of the rapid development of wet electrospinning in the past few years, this paper briefly reviews the recent advances, including the basic principles, device modifications, novel morphologies and structures, and material and product applications. The study explores the research prospects and future development potential of wet electrospinning based on a careful review from the perspective of different application fields.

Excessive energy consumption, especially space heating and cooling, is one of the major challenges facing mankind. Smart heat-moisture management textiles can effectively regulate heat-moisture comfort between the environment and skin, greatly reducing energy consumption; these results are in line with sustainable development goals. In this work, a skin-inspired adaptive heat-regulating fabric based on heat-responsive shape-memory ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer fibres and traditional cotton fabric is used. Furthermore, single-sided hydrophobic finishing is introduced to provide the fabric with unidirectional moisture transport. Owing to the shape memory effect, the smart fabric has an environment-adaptive and responsive dynamic structure in the form of a heat-induced gap opening and cool-induced gap closing. As a result, the heat conductivity of the smart textile can be switched from 0.086 to 0.089 W/m·K. Moreover, the air permeability and moisture evaporation can be regulated between 443.5 mm/s, 1761.81 g/(d·m²) and 461.7 mm/s, 1963.8 g/(d·m²), reversibly and repeatedly; the unidirectional moisture transport capacity with a unidirectional moisture index of 193.2 can also be regulated to synergistically improve the heat-moisture comfort, and the entire process results in zero carbon emission. Moreover, we demonstrate the application of the smart adaptive fabric in heat-moisture management fields, attaining a cooling effect of 4.35 °C and a breathability difference of 89.6 mm/s; these values correspond to more than 30% building cooling and heating energy savings, and these results are in line with the sustainable and zero-carbon trends. The shape memory adaptive heat-moisture management fabric will likely have broad prospects in smart thermoregulation textiles, wearable fields, electronic skin, outdoor, medical, military, and energy-saving fields.

Stable data acquisition and accurate recognition of motion states are critical for biomimetic robots operating in complex environments. This study proposes flexible gait sensors that can detect pressure and vibration for quadruped robots. These sensors are fabricated using a template-confined electrospinning technique, allowing for direct customization of protruding structures. The developed gait sensor exhibits a maximum capacitive sensitivity of 1.237 kPa^-1, a detection extending range up to 1000 kPa, and a fast response time of 5 ms. Leveraging their lightweight nature, these sensors can detect vibrations at various weight loads, frequencies, and amplitudes. Moreover, a recognition process combining these gait sensors with deep learning techniques for quadruped robot applications has been studied. It demonstrates the capability of the sensors to monitor diverse locomotion poses and states of the robot, achieving impressive accuracies of up to 97.50% for gait recognition and 98.04% for abnormal disturbances. This research offers potential applications in developing electronic skins for robots and provides promising solutions for enhancing robot performance in challenging environments.

Wearable electromagnetic interference (EMI) shielding devices are highly demanded to reduce the endlessly emerging EM pollution. Undesired durability and limited scale-up production capacity are the main obstacles to hinder the industrialized application of flexible EMI wearables. Here, a scalable Fe₃O₄/polypyrrole (PPy) embedded cotton/polypropylene (FP@CP) fabric is introduced for EMI shielding and Joule heating, which is achieved by a unique particle flow spinning method. This method can continually manufacture functional yarns in large quantities, followed by weaving into fabrics. The core-sheath yarn structure can highly embed Fe₃O₄/PPy shielding layer by polypropylene (PP) strips, which protects internal functional components from leakage or damage by the environment. Consequently, the obtained fabrics present greater durability (50 washing and 465 abrasion cycles) in comparison with most reported EMI devices. The EMI shielding mechanism was investigated through both experimental and simulation methods. It suggests that the combination of EMI reflection and absorption modes synergistically contributes to enhancing the EMI shielding property of obtained fabrics, reaching a maximum total shielding effectiveness (SE_T) of 47 dB. Besides, the composite fabric achieves a high Joule heating temperature to 105 ℃ at 3 V within 10 s due to its efficient electric-thermal property. This work paves a cost-effective way to realize scale-up manufacturing of versatile EM protection textiles to be applied in daily, military and aerospace fields.

Wound injuries are prevalent, and inappropriate dressings can heighten the risk of bacterial infections and extend the duration of recovery. Conventional wound dressings lack adaptability to the skin, and provide insufficient anti-leakage properties, failing to offer effective physical protection. Films composed of nano- or micro-fibers, due to their suitable softness and excellent deformation capabilities, are apt for wound repair. While electrospinning is employed to produce fibrous wound dressings, its complex procedures and the use of high voltage electric fields can impair the activity of bioactive molecules. In this study, we employed solution blow spinning to produce in-situ hybrids of hydrogenated styrene–butadiene–styrene (SEBS) block copolymer with Ag or TiO₂ nanoparticles for wound dressings. The SEBS polymer forms a closely fitting fibrous membrane on the skin surface via rapid solvent evaporation driven by high-speed airflow. This fibrous membrane demonstrates optimal hydrophobicity, breathability, ductility, and flexibility, aligning well with human skin, to ensure effective physical protection. Upon incorporation of Ag nanoparticles, the fibrous membrane displays robust antibacterial effects against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Escherichia coli (E. coli). Evaluations of wound healing in MRSA-infected wounds, when compared to commercial Tegaderm™ films, show that the SEBS-based fibrous membranes effectively reduce infection, expedite wound closure, enhance collagen deposition, suppress the expression of inflammation-related cytokines and elevate the expression of angiogenesis-related cytokines, thus significantly promoting infected wounds.

A solution blow spinning fibrous membrane was developed for the fabrication of in-situ wound dressings with high flexibility, ease of peeling off, waterproof nature, and prevention of blood penetration.

Piezoresistive pressure sensors have received considerable attention because of their simple structure, high sensitivity and low cost. Graphene, which is known for its outstanding mechanical and electrical properties, has shown great application potential as a sensor material. However, its durability and performance consistency in practical applications still require enhancement. In this study, magnetic graphene fibers (MGFs) are prepared via wet spinning, using graphene oxide (GO), doped with Fe₃O₄ nanoparticles. The resulting MGFs exhibit a high tensile strength of 58.6 MPa, a strain of 5.3% and an electrical conductivity of 1.7 × 10⁴ S/m. These MGFs are utilised to construct a multilayer fabric for fabrication of flexible pressure sensors. The confinement within the spinning channel facilitates an ordered arrangement of GO sheets, resulting in MGFs with superior electrical and mechanical properties. The issuing MGFs pressure sensors demonstrate a wide detection range (0–120 kPa), high sensitivity (0.233 kPa⁻¹, 0–40 kPa) and rapid response/recovery times (121 ms/158 ms). In addition, it exhibits a remarkable durability, maintaining performance over 1300 cycles, during continuous operation, with negligible degradation. This sensor shows excellent capability in monitoring human physiological activities, indicating its substantial application potential in wearable devices.

Precious metal-free electrocatalysts often require significantly more loadings to achieve similar performance as Pt does in fuel cells and metal air batteries. The high loadings cause substantial mass transportation resistance. To address this challenge, we synthesized ordered mesoporous carbon nanofiber electrocatalyst that enables unimpeded mass transfer at mesoscale. The synthesis was based on electrospinning of supramolecular micelles, which were stretched under hydrodynamic forces and self-assembled as in oriented and ordered form. Ordered mesoporous carbon nanofibers (OMCNFs) were obtained after removing the micelle template. The aligned mesopores over electrode scale strongly accelerate diffusion kinetics. The OH⁻ ion diffusion coefficient of OMCNF is 26 times larger than that of the nanofiber with non-ordered pores (NMCNF) and 206 times larger than that of Pt/C. As a result, the electrocatalytic performance of OMCNF was maintained at increased catalyst loadings, while performance deterioration was observed in NMCNF and Pt/C. The assembled zinc-air batteries using aqueous electrolyte and solid-state electrolyte delivered high power density and nice cycling performance.