Hashmi Motahira, Ullah Sana, Ullah Azeem, Akmal Muhammad, Saito Yusuke, Hussain Nadir, Ren Xuehong, Kim Ick Soo
Nano Fusion Technology Research Group, Shinshu University Ueda Campus, Nagano 386-8567, Japan.
Department of Polymer Engineering, National Textile University, Faisalabad, Punjab 37610, Pakistan.
Polymers (Basel). 2020 Oct 29;12(11):2524. doi: 10.3390/polym12112524.
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.
纤维素是最具亲水性的聚合物之一，具有足够的保水能力，但在水性条件下不稳定且会膨胀。由于高膨胀性、高粘度和低导电性，纤维素本身不适合用于制备电纺纳米纤维。羧甲基纤维素（CMC）也是一种超亲水性聚合物，然而它在纳米纤维形成方面与纤维素有相同的趋势。由于上述原因，CMC在纳米技术中的应用相当有限。在最近的研究中，对用于电纺三组分聚乙烯醇（PVA）、聚乙烯吡咯烷酮（PVP）和羧甲基纤维素（CMC）纳米纤维的CMC负载量进行了优化，旨在扩大其应用领域。PVA是一种水溶性聚合物，在水过滤、生物医学和环境工程等领域有广泛应用，且具有易于加工的优点。然而，人们发现仅使用PVA不足以通过静电纺丝制备PVA/CMC纳米纤维。为了提高PVA/CMC纳米纤维的可纺性，由于其较高的导电性和水溶性，PVP被选为最佳选择。还对CMC和PVP的重量比进行了优化，以连续生产出均匀的纳米纤维。据观察，当PVP的重量比为12且CMC的重量比为3时，能在最高负载量下生产出光滑的纳米纤维。
