Characterization and swelling performance of physically stabilized electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol)/chitosan nanofibres

•Bead-free nanofibres could be ontained by 75/25 PVA/chitosan mixture.•Crystallinity of PVA/chitosan nanofibres increased by physical stabilization.•The presence of chitosan decreased the weight loss rate of the samples in water.•Heat treated samples were observed to be highly stable in water without any weight loss.•Chitosan decreased the degree of swelling but stabilization type did not appear to effect swelling performance.

Stabilization of PVA/chitosan nanofibres have been investigated in this work. For this purpose, three stabilization treatments were adopted; methanol, thermal, and glutaraldehyde. Characteristic changes in pre-electrospun solutions, nanofibre dimensions, fibre crystallinity as well as swelling and structural durability have been assessed using SEM, FT-IR, DSC, TGA, water swelling, and structural durability tests. Incorporation of chitosan has been shown to decrease nanofibre diameter and reduce crystallinity of unstabilized nanofibres. However, physical stabilization has been shown to increase degree of crystallinity and thermal stability. PVA/chitosan nanofibres have also shown higher water stability compared to pure PVA nanofibres. Whereas methanol treated PVA/chitosan nanofibres showed deterioration in nano-fibrous structure resulting in considerable weight loss. Thermally stabilized samples showed complete stability of structure in water with no weight loss. It was also found that physical stabilization methods have no significant effect on the swelling ratio of stabilized PVA/chitosan nanofibres.

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