Transport in fibrous materials and biomembranes

纤维材料具有较大的表面积和高度多孔的结构，适用于运输、过滤、分离、吸收等应用。纳米纤维材料的发展充分利用了纤维材料超高表面积的优点。由纳米纤维制成的生物膜在化学或生物防御、伤口敷料、选择性分离、生物或药物活性物质和分子的固定化以及组织工程支架等许多高级应用领域具有潜在的用途。这些异质、各向异性和可压缩的结构是通用的，但对于试图控制和优化其性能以适应不同应用的研究人员来说是一个挑战。到目前为止，还没有一种有效而精确的方法来表征纤维材料中流体传输的结构和行为，但这对材料和生物医学领域的研究至关重要。因此，拟议的工作将侧重于纤维结构和生物膜中流体传输的基础研究，并将应用创新的多尺度方法来弥合我们对纤维材料宏观传输行为的认识与我们对材料微观成分之间相互作用的认识之间的差距。为了实现研究目标，将实施静电纺丝纳米纤维形成设备；将使用宏观和微观技术来表征纤维材料的表面和传输特性。提出的基础研究结果将为纤维材料或生物膜的开发提供基础，用于各种最终用途，包括吸收/吸附，过滤，生物分离，生物防御和支持智能材料或组织工程的膜。拟议的研究将带来商业和经济效益：通过开发高附加值产品；省和加拿大纺织和材料工业将增强其竞争力，提高其在技术部门的纺织市场份额，为国家的经济增长和创造就业机会做出贡献。

Fibrous materials are suitable for applications involving transport, filtration, separation, absorption because they have large surface areas and highly porous structures. The development of nanofibrous materials exploits the advantages of the ultra-high surface areas of fibrous materials. Biomembranes made of nanofibres are potentially useful in many advanced application areas such as chemical or bio-defense, wound dressing, selective separation, immobilization of biologically or pharmacologically active agents and molecules, and scaffold for tissue engineering. These heterogeneous, anisotropic and compressible structures are versatile, yet challenging to researchers trying to control and optimize their properties for different applications. Up to now, an efficient and precise way to characterize the structure and the behavior of fluid transport in fibrous materials is still unavailable, but is essential for research in the field of material and biomedical sciences.       The proposed work will therefore focus on fundamental studies of fluid transport in fibrous structures and biomembranes, and will apply innovative multi-scale approaches to bridge the gap between our knowledge of the macroscopic transport behavior of fibrous materials, and our knowledge of the interaction among microscopic constituents of materials. To fulfill the research objectives, electrospinning equipment for nanofibre formation will be implemented; both macroscopic and microscopic techniques for characterizing surface and transport properties of fibrous materials will be used. The result of the proposed fundamental studies will provide groundwork in the development of fibrous materials or biomembranes for a wide variety of end uses, including absorption/adsorption, filtration, bio-separation, bio-defense, and membranes supporting smart materials, or tissue engineering. The proposed studies will lead to commercial and economic benefits: by developing high value-added products; the provincial and Canadian textile and material industry will enhance its competitiveness and increase its proportion of the textile market in technical sectors, contributing to the country's economic growth and job creation.