Electrospinning is a widely used technique to draw recalcitrant biopolymer solutions into micro to nanoscale materials in a simple and economical way. Ionic liquids have long been used as a non-volatile solvent for natural insoluble biopolymers. Compared to traditional organic solvents, ionic liquids can dissolve the biopolymers without altering the molecular weight of the biopolymer. The focus for this research is the production and characterization of electrospun micro to nanoscale composite biomaterials that were first dissolved in 1-ethyl-3-methylimidizolium acetate (EMIMAc) ionic liquid and regenerated using coagulation baths of EtOH or water. Various ratios of silk-cellulose biocomposite films regenerated from ionic liquids were used as the raw materials and dissolved/dispersed into Formic Acid-CaCl2 solution in order to initiate 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 create raw composite materials, may lead to extensive research into its biomedical and pharmaceutical technology applications in the future.

Electrospun silk-cellulose composite nanomaterials using ionic liquid regenerated films

Macromolecular Chemistry: The Second Century

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ACS Spring 2020 National Meeting & Expo

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.