Preparation and characterization of polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/TiO2 ultrafine fibers

To develop a novel functional composite material for anti-bacterial application, the mixing electrospinning technique was applied to encapsulation of polyacrylonitril (TiO2) solutions into nanofibers. The nanofibers were characterized by using scanning electron microscope (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The anti-bacterial performance of the nonwoven mats for Staphylococcus aureus was also measured. Experimental results showed that when the ratio of PAN solution and TiO2 gel was 3.5:1, the resulting fibers were most uniform with the least beads on fiber surface and 82% of the Staphylococcus aureus bacteria were killed. The preliminary results indicated that the attachment of TiO2 into PAN nanofibers led to a significant improvement in its anti-bacterial ability.