Nanoporous PLA/(Chitosan Nanoparticle) Composite Fibrous Membranes with Excellent Air Filtration and Antibacterial Performance

Abstract

Particulate matter (PM) pollution, which usually carries viruses and bacteria, has drawn considerable attention as a major threat to public health. In this present study, an environment-friendly antibacterial Poly(lactic acid)(PLA)/chitosan composite air filter was fabricated using the one-step electrospinning technique. The composite PLA/chitosan fibres show a highly porous structure, in which chitosan nanoparticles (NPs) were found to be uniformly distributed throughout the entire fibre. The morphologies, through-pore size and distribution, air filtration and anti-microbial properties of these filter media were studied. The results showed that it was not the chitosan content but instead the concentration of the spinning solutions that had the greatest effect on the morphologies of the porous fibres. The relative humidity influenced the nanometre-scale pores on the surface of PLA/chitosan fibres. The PLA/chitosan fibrous membranes with a chitosan to PLA mass ratio of 2.5:8 exhibited a high filtration efficiency of 98.99% and a relatively low pressure drop (147.60 Pa) when the air flow rate was 14 cm/s, while these also had high antibacterial activity of 99.4% and 99.5% against Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus, respectively. It took 33 min for the PM2.5 concentration to decrease to 0 μg/m3 from 999 μg/m3 using the PLA/chitosan fibrous membranes, which demonstrates obviously effective air purification performance.

Biocompatible Materials Based on Plasticized Poly(lactic acid), Chitosan and Rosemary Ethanolic Extract I. Effect of Chitosan on the Properties of Plasticized Poly(lactic acid) Materials

“…Similar results were reported by other authors. PLA/chitosan fibrous membrane exhibited excellent antibacterial capabilities with an inhibition of 99.4% and 99.5% against E. coli and S. aureus , respectively [113].…”

A Review on the Impact of Humidity during Electrospinning: From the Nanofiber Structure Engineering to the Applications

“…For hydrophobic polymers in various solvents, depending on humidity, electrospinning can lead to wrinkled or rough fibers, [79] as well as fibers having pores in their core and/or in their surface [9,45,46,[90][91][92] (Table 2). For example, Li et al [93] have recently studied the case of PLA/chitosan electrospun in DCM/DMAc. They showed that the coverage of pores on the fiber surface as well the pore size increased significantly with humidity.…”

“…Similar results were obtained by Wang et al for PLA-based filters made of interlaced or multilayer microfibers and nanofibers. [91][92][93] The improvement of the filtration efficiency requires the fabrication of membranes with the finest possible fibers while maintaining high mechanical properties. In order to meet such requirements, Zhang et al proposed the elaboration of robust PMIA membranes which embedded a nanonet structure when electrospinning was carried out at low humidity RH ≤ 25%.…”

Chitosan Grafted Adsorbents for Diclofenac Pharmaceutical Compound Removal from Single-Component Aqueous Solutions and Mixtures

“…Chitosan (poly-β-(1 → 4)-2-amino-2-deoxy- d -glucose) has the advantage of easy modification (grafting with various functional groups), so it can be easily transformed to the appropriate adsorbent each time. Some of its unique properties such as biocompatibility, biodegradability and non-toxicity, along with its adsorption ability, turn chitosan into a very promising and eco-friendly adsorbent material [26,27,28,29,30], which can be also combined with agro-wastes (coffee) for pharmaceutical removal [31]. Our research team has been extensively studying the use of chitosan in adsorption applications (i.e., for environmental pollutants such as dyes [32,33,34,35,36], heavy metals [37,38,39,40,41,42], and drugs [43]).…”