A method for controlling the surface morphology of centrifugally spun starch‐based fibers

Abstract

In the present study, we provide a method for controlling the surface morphology of centrifugally spun starch-based fibers by adjusting the ratio of amylopectin/amylose in starches and combining with a hot blast temperature. The effects of hot blast temperature, amylopectin, and amylose on fiber surface morphologies are investigated. Scanning electron microscopy is used to characterize the morphology of the prepared fibers. The results show that fibers with burr-shaped nanostructures on the surface can be fabricated by adding amylopectin to starches and are promoted by increasing the hot blast temperature. However, amylose in starches plays the role of smoothing the fiber surfaces. X-ray diffraction reveals that the fibers are amorphous. Through Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis, it was found that some physicochemical changes occur during centrifugal spinning. V C 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2018, 135, 45810.

Jet evolution and fiber formation mechanism of amylopectin rich starches in centrifugal spinning system

“…We could observe from these curves that endothermic peaks for the starch powders were higher than all of the obtained starch‐based fibers (Table 2). It was probably due to the semicrystalline structures of starch powders were damaged during centrifugal spinning, as have been demonstrated by our precious reports 18,23 . The native starch powders expressed the highest of melting enthalpy and thermal transition temperatures, which further revealed the thermal properties of starch powders were significantly affected by the semicrystalline structures.…”

“…When the amylopectin added or existed in the obtained fiber, the thermal transition temperatures and melting enthalpy displayed an irregular trend with the amylose/amylopectin ratios changes. As we have been demonstrated in the previous paper, the obtained starch‐based fibers from native starch and starches with different amylose/amylopectin ratios show the amorphous structures 18 . Therefore, it might be caused the structural changes of obtained fibers more complicated in the process of heating.…”

“…Nevertheless, the limitations of productivity and high voltage for electrospinning, and the strong corrosive of formic acid seriously affected the largely industry production of starch‐based fibers 16 . In the previous studies, we successfully fabricated centrifugally spun starch‐based fibers from amylopectin rich native starches by using 2.0%(wt/wt) aqueous sodium hydroxide solution as solvent, and the starches with amylopectin ratio high as 81% were demonstrated suitable for fiber fabrication 17,18 . Among the existing publications, many of electropsun and centrifugally spun starch‐based fibers contained beads on fiber membranes, which especially for the fibers formed from native starches 15,17 .…”

Centrifugally spun ultrafine starch/PEO fibres as release formulation for poorly water‐soluble drugs

“…As our previous paper reported, the pattern of starch granule reflected the A-type crystal structure, while the obtained fibres showed amorphous structure due to the loss of crystal domain during starch dissolved in solvent (Fig. 3a) [38]. The loss of crystal structure for PEO in fibres could be due to the well dissolvability in sodium hydroxide solution.…”

“…The composites solution was under continuous magnetic stirring for 10 h at temperature 25 ± 2°C. The drug-loaded fibres were prepared by using centrifugal spinning setup made by our group [38], which under the rotational speed was kept at 1500 rpm and the 27 G (inner diameter: 0.21 mm) needle was chosen as nozzle. Besides, a hot air (45 ± 5°C) was added to increase the solvent evaporation in the spinning process.…”