Morphological and chemical characterization of electrospun silk fibroin/polyvinyl alcohol nanofibers

Abstract

Silk from Bombyx mori has been used extensively as biomaterial due to its biocompatibility, mechanical performance and degradability. Silk was composed of two major proteins: silk fibroin (SF) and sericin (SS). SF based biomaterial has been found suitable for various applications such as drug delivery, skin wound dressing and tissue scaffolds. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is a water-soluble, nontoxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable polymer. To improve the mechanical properties of PVA, SF was used in this study. SF was blended with PVA to obtain the SF/PVA nanofibers. SF and PVA was dissolved in distilled water. The ratios between SF and PVA were varied from 8:2, 7:3 and 6:4. Electrospinning process was used to obtain SF/PVA nanofiber. Morphology of the electrospun nanofibers was studied by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FE-SEM). SF/PVA nanofibers were successfully fabricated using electrospinning with the average smallest diameter of the nanofibers obtained at 121nm. The formation of functional groups of SF, PVA, and SF/PVA blends was examined using the FTIR spectra. The data confirmed the presence of SF and PVA in the prepared electrospun nanofibers. Thermal decomposition temperature of electrospun nanofibers was analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The thermogram of all samples showed thermal stability does not change with the addition of SF in PVA.