Chitin and chitosan nanofibers: electrospinning of chitin and deacetylation of chitin nanofibers

Nanofibrous Structure of Chitosan for Biomedical Applications

“…Electrospinning is a fastest growing trend in the production of fibers in laboratory to industrial scale [23][24][25][26]. Recently, these techniques have become popular due to their ability to produce various classes of ultrafine fibers such as polymer, ceramics, metals, composite etc., with diameters in the range several micrometers down to tens of nanometers.…”

“…Electrospinning of chitosan using different solvent systems will have some limitation in obtaining continuous fibers. An alternative method has been developed by using neutral nonionic form of chitin solutions to make chitin fibers which later can be converted to chitosan fibers through deactylation process [4,26]. Chitin powder was first depolymerized by gamma irradiation to make it soluble.…”

“…Finally, the fibers were dried under vacuum. Deacetylation reaction took place when chitin fibers were treated with concentrated base [26]. Nam et al [4] was also able to generate chitosan nanofibers from chitin nanofibers by using a heterogeneous alkaline treatment to complete the transformation of chitosan nanofibers with different degrees of deacetylation.…”

“…Polymer and solution properties such as molecular weight, viscosity, conductivity, and surface tension are very important parameters to control the fibers size and morphology. Some other parameters which can change the electrospinning process are applied voltage, tip-to-collector distance, feeding rate, etc [23][24][25][26].…”

Electrospinning Technology for Nanofibrous Scaffolds in Tissue Engineering

“…Chitosan carries a high cationic charge density and can interact with various anionic polymers, such as chondroitin sulfate, to form a hydrogel scaffold [119]. Different from a hydrated scaffold, an electrospun scaffold is a preformed, nanofiber-based scaffold with a definite structure [120][121][122]. Min et al used radiation to depolymerize chitin to increase its solubility for electrospinning [120].…”