Recent progress in conductive electrospun materials for flexible electronics: Energy, sensing, and electromagnetic shielding applications

The fast growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) will make traditional silicon-based electronics not fully capable of meeting market demands for portable, wearable, wireless, and real-time transmission devices. This scenario offers opportunities for developing flexible electronics that can circumvent physical rigidity by introducing flexible conducting materials. In this regard, due to their remarkable mechanical properties, high specific surface area, hierarchically porous structure, and surface/composition adaptability, conductive electrospun micro-/nanofibers have gained substantial popularity as key components in a variety of next-generation flexible devices. This review surveys the recent advances of conductive electrospun fibrous materials in flexible electronics, including supercapacitors, batteries, nanogenerators, sensors, and electromagnetic interference shielding. The vast selection of both synthetic and natural polymers, along with conducting materials, such as graphene, carbon nanotubes, metal and metal oxide nanostructures, MOFs, MXenes, and conducting polymers, can be combined to design customized flexible devices and are here highlighted and compared to help researchers to keep a balance between mechanical and electrical/electrochemical performances. Finally, challenges and some perspectives are also presented and discussed, providing an insightful outlook toward future developments of advanced flexible electronics based on conductive electrospun materials.