Abstract
Chitosan composite fibrous materials continue to generate significant interest for wastewater treatment, food packaging, and biomedical applications. This relates to the relatively high surface area and porosity of such fibrous chitosan materials that synergize with their unique physicochemical properties. Various methods are involved in the preparation of chitosan composite fibrous materials, which include the modification of the biopolymer that serve to alter the solubility of chitosan, along with post-treatment of the composite materials to improve the water stability or to achieve tailored functional properties. Two promising methods to produce such composite fibrous materials involve freeze-drying and electrospinning. Future developments of such composite fibrous materials demands an understanding of the various modes of preparation and methods of structural characterization of such materials. This review contributes to an understanding of the structure–property relationships of composite fibrous materials that contain chitosan, along with an overview of recent advancements concerning their preparation.
Highlights
Chitosan, β-(1,4)-aminoglucopyranose contains randomly distributed N-acetylglucosamine and glucosamine residues
Other hypotheses have been proposed for chitosan/collagen blends to explain for the improved electrospinning performance, which includes the enhancement of molecular interactions through chitosan assembly with collagen in a triple helix or the two polymers undergo complex formation via ionic interactions [77]
This review focuses on different preparation procedures and methods that involve freeze-drying and electrospinning of chitosan composite fibrous materials and the consequence of such protocols on the material structure
Summary
Chitosan (chi), β-(1,4)-aminoglucopyranose contains randomly distributed N-acetylglucosamine and glucosamine residues (cf. Figure 1). Chemicaland andphysical physical properties of chitosan, as crystallinity, solubility (in medium), and reactivity, depend depend on several features of the chitosan acidic medium), and reactivity, onstructural several structural features of the biopolymer. These features include the average molecular weight, degree of deacetylation of the chitosan opolymer. The of the biopolymer in aqueous media, including its ability to form complexes with cationic solubility of chitosan in acidic media can be evaluated from its pKa value, which can be species [7]. The modality of the deacetylation may affect the DA, molar mass, and viscosity of the biopolymer in solution [2]
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