Optimized Loading of Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC) in Tri-component Electrospun Nanofibers Having Uniform Morphology

Abstract

Cellulose is one of the most hydrophilic polymers with sufficient water holding capacity but it is unstable in aqueous conditions and it swells. Cellulose itself is not suitable for electrospun nanofibers’ formation due to high swelling, viscosity, and lower conductivity. Carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) is also super hydrophilic polymer, however it has the same trend for nanofibers formation as that of cellulose. Due to the above-stated reasons, applications of CMC are quite limited in nanotechnology. In recent research, loading of CMC was optimized for electrospun tri-component polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), and carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) nanofibers aim at widening its area of applications. PVA is a water-soluble polymer with a wide range of applications in water filtration, biomedical, and environmental engineering, and with the advantage of easy process ability. However, it was observed that only PVA was not sufficient to produce PVA/CMC nanofibers via electrospinning. To increase spinnability of PVA/CMC nanofibers, PVP was selected as the best available option because of its higher conductivity and water solubility. Weight ratios of CMC and PVP were optimized to produce uniform nanofibers with continuous production as well. It was observed that at a weight ratio of PVP 12 and CMC 3 was at the highest possible loading to produce smooth nanofibers.

Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC) Based Electrospun Composite Nanofiber Mats for Food Packaging

“…No hydroxyl peak was found in the case of a composite nanofiber, which indicates completely restricted –OH functionality in composite nanofibers. In the PVA spectrum, the symmetric and asymmetric peak (–CH 2 –) was observed at 2900 cm −1 [ 46 ], while PVP polymer exhibited its characteristic peak of carboxylic groups’ (C=O) stretching vibration in the pyrrolidone structure at 1650 cm −1 , and peaks from 2850 to 2980 cm −1 were associated with CH stretching. Peaks at 1430 cm −1 and 1370 cm −1 were associated with the CH deformation band (difference in peaks in red and black colors in Figure 1 ).…”

“…It was stated in the literature that nanofibers of uncrosslinked PVA tend to be hydrophilic while the water contact angle increases with an increasing degree of crosslinking. It also depends on the type of crosslinking agents used to crosslink PVA, and the method of crosslinking as well [ 46 ]. Figure 4 shows contact angles for each sample.…”

“…Electrospinning conditions were set to as follows; syringe 20 mL, stainless steel needle of 18 gauge, commercially available syringe pump (SPS series, AS One), flow rate 0.8 mL/h, tip to collector distance was kept at 14 cm, and voltage of 20 kV was applied. After electrospinning all samples were crosslinked by the HCl fume method as per our previous research [ 46 ].…”

Synthesis of Highly Conductive Electrospun Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate Nanofibers Using the Electroless Deposition Method

“…Nanotechnology has deep roots in every field of life and in helping the research community to solve a wide a range of challenges [ 26 ]. Electrospinning is a simple technique to produce fibers with diameters in the range of a few tens to hundreds of nanometers.…”

Magnetic Solid-Phase Extraction of Cadmium Ions by Hybrid Self-Assembled Multicore Type Nanobeads

“…Polymeric adsorbents have also been used for heavy metal adsorption applications, due to their adsorptive properties such as good pore sizes and flexible functional groups that widen their selectivity. However, their uses still have some important limitations, such as inadequacies in molecular structure, low selectivity to the target adsorbate and recycling issues [ 28 ]. To overcome these limitations, various organic-inorganic hybrid polymers have been used for the removal of heavy metals from wastewater [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 ].…”