Electrospun Silk-Cellulose Composite Nanomaterials Using Ionic Liquid Regenerated Films†
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA
2
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA
3
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA
4
Department of Chemistry, Center for Integrative and Computational Biology, Rutgers University, Camden, NJ 08102, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
†
Presented at the First International Conference on “Green” Polymer Materials 2020, 5–25 November 2020; Available online: https://sciforum.net/conference/CGPM2020.
Proceedings 2021, 69(1), 31; https://doi.org/10.3390/CGPM2020-07597
Published: 9 November 2020
(This article belongs to the Proceedings of The First International Conference on “Green” Polymer Materials 2020)
Electrospinning is a widely used technique to draw recalcitrant biopolymer solutions into micro to nanoscale materials in a simple and economical way. The first focus of this research involved using ionic liquids as a non-volatile solvent for natural insoluble biopolymers such as silk and cellulose (or cellulose derivatives). Compared to traditional organic solvents, ionic liquids can dissolve biopolymers without altering the molecular weight of the biopolymer. In this study, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidizolium acetate (EMIMAc) ionic liquid was used and the regenerated films were coagulated in baths of EtOH or water. The second focus of this research explored the dissolution of IL-regenerated composites into organic solvents and their electrospun composite nanomaterials. Various ratios of silk-cellulose bio-composite films regenerated from ionic liquids were used as the raw materials and sequentially dissolved/dispersed into a Formic Acid-CaCl2 solution in order to initiate the electrospinning of silk-cellulose nanomaterials. Because of the variability of ionic liquids, the nanomaterials produced using this technique have unique and tunable properties such as large surface area to volume ratios and low structural defects. FTIR and SEM results suggest that the structure and morphology of the final nanosized samples becomes more globular when the biopolymer composition ratio has increased cellulose content. TGA results demonstrated that the electrospun materials have better thermal stability than the original films. This two-step electrospinning method, using ionic liquid as a non-volatile solvent to first dissolve and mix raw natural materials, may lead to extensive research into its biomedical and pharmaceutical applications in the future.
Keywords:
ionic liquids; electrospinning; silk; cellulose; biomaterials
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MDPI and ACS Style
Rivera-Galletti, A.; Xue, Y.; Love, S.; de la Cruz, D.S.; Hu, X. Electrospun Silk-Cellulose Composite Nanomaterials Using Ionic Liquid Regenerated Films. Proceedings 2021, 69, 31. https://doi.org/10.3390/CGPM2020-07597
AMA Style
Rivera-Galletti A, Xue Y, Love S, de la Cruz DS, Hu X. Electrospun Silk-Cellulose Composite Nanomaterials Using Ionic Liquid Regenerated Films. Proceedings. 2021; 69(1):31. https://doi.org/10.3390/CGPM2020-07597
Chicago/Turabian StyleRivera-Galletti, Ashley; Xue, Ye; Love, Stacy; de la Cruz, David Salas; Hu, Xiao. 2021. "Electrospun Silk-Cellulose Composite Nanomaterials Using Ionic Liquid Regenerated Films" Proceedings 69, no. 1: 31. https://doi.org/10.3390/CGPM2020-07597
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