Surface characterization of the electrospun chitosan nanofibers after methane plasma treatment

Abstract

Present nanofiber technology is one of the most important objects in the recent research topics. Electrospinning is a unique technology that can produce non-woven fibrous materials with interesting characteristics such as diameters ranging from sub-micron to several nanometers, high surface to volume ratio, high porosity and small interfibrous pore size. Polymer nanofibres have great potential for technical applications in filtration, composites and electronics. Nanofibers are also of importance in many different applications as the drug delivery, biomaterials and tissue engineering. For these applications there is a great need for polymer nanofibers with well defined surface properties. In this field, plasma surface treatment has been applied in the textile industry for the modification of polymer nanofibers. In this study, chitosan nanofibers were prepared by modified electrospinning method called NanospiderTM and treated with plasma in the presence of methane gas. The surface characteristics of the nanofibers after plasma treatment were examined using contact angle measurements, SEM and XPS analysis