Electrospinning of nanofibers chitosan/PVA-sodium silicate

Chitosan is one of the biomaterials used in making membranes using electrospinning techniques. Chitosan was chosen because it has high biocompatibility and biodegradability. Chitosan solution has high viscosity even at low concentrations therefore this polymer is very difficult to be electrospinned without other polymers addition. Mixing polymer solution is a method commonly used to provide the desired polymer solution material with combined properties for certain applications. Polyvinyl alcohol is an excellent material for making fiber. In making membranes using solvent evaporation techniques, sodium silicate added to the chitosan solution will make the chitosan-silica membrane become porous even though the effect is not significant. This article will discuss the effect of adding sodium silicate to the manufacture of chitosan-PVA-sodium silicate membranes using electrospinning method. The results showed that sodium silicate solution addition to CS/PVA polymer solutions increases the fiber diammeter percentage to be <100 nm and increased the fiber uniformity, especially in chitosan/PVA polymer mixtures with volume ratio of 2:8. The addition of sodium silicate solution to the chitosan/PVA polymer solution reduces the CS/PVA-sodium silicate fibers thermal stability but increases the CS/PVA-sodium silicate fibers hydrophilicity. (paper)