Many solvents suitable for wet or dry spinning of cellulose and cellulose derivatives have also been investigated as solvents for electrospinning. Solvents for cellulose are not completely volatile and have required coagulation steps to ensure complete removal of the solvent from electrospun fibers and produce stable fibers. Cellulose derivatives include cellulose acetate, hydroxypropyl cellulose, hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose, and ethyl‐cyanoethyl cellulose, which can be dissolved in volatile solvents suitable for electrospinning. Cellulose acetate in particular has been electrospun under a wide variety of conditions and subsequently deacetylated to form cellulose nanofibers or functionalized with other side groups.

Biomolecule immobilization has attracted the attention of various fields such as fine chemistry and biomedicine for their use in several applications such as wastewater, immunosensors, biofuels, et cetera. The performance of immobilized biomolecules depends on the substrate and the immobilization method utilized. Electrospun nanofibers act as an excellent substrate for immobilization due to their large surface area to volume ratio and interconnectivity. While biomolecules can be immobilized using adsorption and encapsulation, covalent immobilization offers a way to permanently fix the material to the fiber surface resulting in high efficiency, good specificity, and excellent stability. This review aims to highlight the various covalent immobilization techniques being utilized and their benefits and drawbacks. These methods typically fall into two categories: (1) direct immobilization and (2) use of crosslinkers. Direct immobilization techniques are usually simple and utilize the strong electrophilic functional groups on the nanofiber. While crosslinkers are used as an intermediary between the nanofiber substrate and the biomolecule, with some crosslinkers being present in the final product and others simply facilitating the reactions. We aim to provide an explanation of each immobilization technique, biomolecules commonly paired with said technique and the benefit of immobilization over the free biomolecule.

The purpose of this study was to measure and compare the biodegradability of fabrics in laboratory and large scale composting environments. Cotton jersey fabrics with three levels of finishing treatments (scoured and bleached, softener added and resin added) and a polyester jersey fabric were tested. Under controlled laboratory conditions, the carbon dioxide produced was monitored and integrated to determine the biodegradation rate by ASTM D 5988–03 method in natural soil, and the weight losses were measured after biodegradation in enzyme solutions. The same set of fabrics was buried in the Cornell University Composting Facility for 3 months. The weight losses and the fabric morphology after biodegradation were used to assess and compare the biodegradability with the results obtained under laboratory conditions. The polyester fabric showed a slight initial degradation, but the fabric remained intact under both laboratory conditions and the compost environment. The cotton fabric with softener had an accelerated degradation rate, while the cotton fabric with resin showed a relatively slow degradation rate. All cotton samples were more significantly degraded in the compost environment than under the laboratory conditions and confirmed to be ‘compostable’.

Lithium–sulfur (Li–S) batteries have been earning significant attention because of their high energy density and cost efficiency. Albeit these outstanding qualities, the polysulfide shuttling effect and low electrical conductivity of the sulfur active material in this battery chemistry results in poor cycling performance. In an attempt to overcome these problems, a hybrid structure of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrene sulfonate) and reduced graphene oxide was developed and coated on the surface of a conventional separator using air-controlled electrospray. Implementing these coated separators in Li–S batteries led to lower polarization and stymied the polysulfide shuttling effect through the combining effects of electrostatic, physical, and chemical interactions. Our results reveal that the capacity and rate capacity are drastically improved via coating the separator, leading to more than twice the capacity of over 800 mA h g^–1 after 100 cycles at 0.5 C rate, when it is compared to those with the pristine separator. Overall, this hybrid coating material shows great promise in enhancing the current Li–S battery technology.