Electrospinning nanosuspensions loaded with passivated Au nanoparticles

Aqueous polyethylene oxide (PEO) solutions (2 MDa, 2-5 wt %) with or without citrate passivated Au nanoparticles (5.7×10−7 wt %) have been electrospun, producing fibres with diameters from 290 μm to 55 nm. The incorporation of nanoparticles suppresses the diameter of the fibres and increases the degree of crystallinity. Such nanocomposite fibres are of interest as self-assembled templates for bottom-up fabrication methodologies.

Electrospinning was used to fabricate PEO/Au nanoparticle composite nanofibres. The fibres were characterised by AFM, optical microscopy, TEM and DSC to investigate the morphology and crystallinity of the fibres.