Fabrication, characterization and antibacterial properties of ZnO nanoparticles decorated electrospun polyacrylonitrile nanofibers membranes

Zinc oxide (ZnO) was widely used in antibacterial applications due to the excellent physicochemical properties and unique bioactivities. However, powdery ZnO could give rise to further problems, such as the agglomeration, easy deactivation, the difficult recovery during the used process, and so on. In this study, polyacrylonitrile nanofiber membranes (PAN NFMs) had been electrospun and reinforced with organic Hectorite (OHec). Further, prepared NFMs decorated with ZnO via surface modification technique, denoted as ZnO-g-PAN NFMs. The characterizations of pure PAN and ZnO-g-PAN NFMs were investigated by means of FESEM, FTIR, XRD and TG, furthermore, antibacterial properties were also analyzed. The results indicated that the surface morphology of ZnO-g-PAN NFMs became uneven, rough and irregular compared with raw PAN. The incorporation of ZnO and OHec in the fibers mainly enhanced the mechanical properties of NFMs. The hydrophilicity and surface roughness of NFMs increased with increasing of the ZnO concentration. In particular, ZnO-g-PAN NFMs exhibited excellent antibacterial activities, which was approved by the fact that they revealed the antibacterial rates of 97.7 % against Escherichia coli (E. coli) and 98.2 % against Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus). Further, NFMs showed good cytocompatibility with L929 cells. These results demonstrated that ZnO-g-PAN NFMs would have a great potential for antibacterial applications.