Fabrication, Functionalization, and Application of Electrospun Biopolymer Nanofibers

Abstract

The use of novel nanostructured materials has attracted considerable interest in the food industry for their utilization as highly functional ingredients, high-performance packaging materials, processing aids, and food quality and safety sensors. Most previous application interest has focused on the development of nanoparticles. However, more recently, the ability to produce non-woven mats composed of nanofibers that can be used in food applications is beginning to be investigated. Electrospinning is a novel fabrication technique that can be used to produce fibers with diameters below 100 nm from (bio-) polymer solutions. These nanofibers have been shown to possess unique properties that distinguish them from non-woven fibers produced by other methods, e.g., melt-blowing. This is because first the process involved results in a high orientation of polymers within the fibers that leads to mechanically superior properties, e.g., increased tensile strengths. Second, during the spinning of the fibers from polymer solutions, the solvent is rapidly evaporated allowing the production of fibers composed of polymer blends that would typically phase separate if spun with other processes. Third, the small dimensions of the fibers lead to very high specific surface areas. Because of this the fiber properties may be greatly influenced by surface properties giving rise to fiber functionalities not found in fibers of larger sizes. For food applications, the fibers may find uses as ingredients if they are composed solely of edible polymers and GRAS ingredients, (e.g., fibers could contain functional ingredients such as nutraceuticals, antioxidants, antimicrobials, and flavors), as active packaging materials or as processing aids (e.g., catalytic reactors, membranes, filters (Lala et al., 2007), and sensors (Manesh et al., 2007; Ren et al., 2006; Sawicka et al., 2005). This review is therefore intended to introduce interested food and agricultural scientists to the concept of nano-fiber manufacturing with a particular emphasis on the use of biopolymers. We will review typical fabrication set-ups, discuss the influence of process conditions on nanofiber properties, and then review previous studies that describe the production of biopolymer-based nanofibers. Finally we briefly discuss emerging methods to further functionalize fibers and discuss potential applications in the area of food science and technology.

Release and antibacterial activity of allyl isothiocyanate/β-cyclodextrin complex encapsulated in electrospun nanofibers

“…Active agents loaded electrospun nanofibers may be useful in food packaging [3,4,[7][8][9][10][11] and biomedical applications [12][13][14] as reported in the literature. Vega-Lugo et al made comparison in terms of release characteristics of free AITC and AITC/␤-CD-IC including soy protein nanofibers with changing relative humidity and they also studied the effect of AITC amount on the release of AITC from AITC including polylactic acid nanofibers in different relative humidity [8].…”

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“…As the electrospinning process progresses, the ultrafine fibres are collected on a collector plate as fibrous film. The electrospun fibrous mats/films have currently gained rapid interest as a potential controlled release candidate in food, pharmaceutical, and medical applications [2][3][4][5][6][7] . Nonetheless, direct dispersion of proteinaceous substances including enzymes, hormones, and amino acids into an electrospinning solution leads to compromising functional property of these bioactive substances due to the strong solvents commonly used in the preparation of electrospinning solutions.…”

Biocompatibility of electrospun poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) and its composites scaffoldsfor tissue engineering

“…[25]. Поэтому получение на выходе волокон определенной морфологии является одной из основных проблем, актуальной и на сегодняшний день.…”