Novel nanofluidic and microfluidic devices and their applications

The review covers the hydrodynamic and physico-chemical aspects of a number of inter-related situations arising in relation to flows in the individual nanochannels and microchannels or in the interconnected networks of microscopic pores inside membranes formed by electrospun nanofibers. The applications of such flows or devices comprised of such elements are discussed too, having in mind reverse osmosis, cooling of high-power microelectronics by means of nanoparticles of phase-change materials, charging oils in electrostatic atomizers, printing wearable microelectronics on textiles, separators, and forensic science. Such flows can be also used for non-specific adsorption of heavy metal ions on biopolymer-containing membranes, and scavenging of nanoparticles from throughflows by means of the van der Waals or Coulombic forces. Microchannel flows inside the inter-connected pores of electrospun membranes can be electrokinetically driven as the electro-osmotic Smoluchowski flows, which opens a way to malleable membranes and surfaces. They also can be thermo-responsive or pH-responsive in the case of membranes formed from PNIPAM and poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) electrospun nanofibers, which yield novel actuators and drug carriers.