The structure and property of the electrospinning silk fibroin/gelatin blend nanofibers

Abstract

Nanofibers could provide benefits due to high surface area for biomaterial scaffolds. In order to improve both silk fibroin and gelatin performance for potential biomedical applications, in this article the electrospinning of silk fibroin (SF)/gelatin (GT) blends with different composition ratio and concentration was performed with formic acid as a spinning solvent. The nanofibers morphologies and diameters were observed by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Blending with GT could improve the viscosity and spinnability of spinning solution. As-spun SF/GT blend nanofibers were more homogeneous and non-beaded than pure SF nanofibers. The diameter decreased with higher voltage at same electric field intensity. On increasing the concentrations of spinning solution, the pore diameter of nanofibers decreased, and the porosity increased. In addition, FTIR and DTA analyses showed SF/GT nanofibers had more β-sheets than pure SF nanofibers, which may be caused by an intermolecular interaction between SF and GT. Blending with GT also led to substantial enhancement in mechanical properties of SF nanofibers.