Development of electrospun iminochitosan for improved wound healing application

Abstract

Chitosan is a well known anti-microbial polymer. It is desired to develop and evaluate chitosan based structures with high surface area using electrospun nanofibers. To explore the properties of chitosan derivatives, iminochitosan was synthesized and electrospinning of its solutions was conducted. Nanofibers were obtained from iminochitosan solutions using trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) as a solvent. Nanofiberwebs of fiber diameter range 70- 400 nm were successfully obtained from 3%-8% iminochitosan solution in TFA using electrospinning technique of electric field of 2.5-6.0 kV/cm. Contact kill performance of the iminochitosan structures against a range of microbes was carried out using the disc diffusion method. The results indicate that the nanofiberwebs exhibit excellent antimicrobial behavior. It was found that the inhibition zone is affected by the iminochitosan structure parameters, namely covering power, surface area (which was affected by diameter), and basis weight. Viscosity of the solutions was determined and fiber formation was obtained in the range of 400-670cP.