In his office, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Professor of Chemical Engineering Gregory Rutledge keeps a small piece of fabric that at first glance resembles a Kleenex. This tissue-like material, softer than silk, is composed of fibers that are a thousand times thinner than a human hair and holds promise for a wide range of applications including protective clothing, drug delivery and tissue engineering.
Such materials are produced by electrospinning, a technique that has taken off in the past 10 years, though the original technology was patented more than a century ago. In Rutledge’s lab, researchers are exploring new ways to create electrospun fibers, often incorporating materials that add novel features such as the ability to kill bacteria.
“We’re still in the Wild West mode of discovery,” says Rutledge. “People are hypothesizing almost anything and giving it a try. We’re still trying to figure out which ones are the payoff applications.”
Rutledge has been one of the pioneers of electrospinning nanofibers since the nanotechnology boom of the late 1990s. Though he describes the actual electrospinning process as almost “a mundane thing,” he and his colleagues have demonstrated a number of ways to create electrospun membranes with new and useful traits.
