Abstract
Background: Within the healthcare industry, including the care of chronic wounds, the challenge of antimicrobial resistance continues to grow. As such, there is a need to develop new treatments that can reduce the bioburden in wounds. Objective: The present study is focused on the development of polyaniline (PANI) / chitosan (CH) nanofibrous electrospun membranes and evaluates their antibacterial properties. Methods: To this end, experimental design was used to determine the electrospinning windows of both pure chitosan and PANI/CH blends of different ratios (1:3, 3:5, 1:1). The effect of key environmental and process parameters (relative humidity and applied voltage) was determined, as well as the effect of the PANI/CH ratio in the blend and the molecular interactions between PANI and chitosan that led to jet stability. Results: The nanofibrous mats were evaluated regarding their morphology and antibacterial effect against model gram positive and gram negative bacterial strains, namely B. subtilis and E. coli. High PANI content mats show increased bactericidal activity against both bacterial strains. Conclusion: The blend fibre membranes combine the materials’ respective properties, namely electrical conductivity, biocompatibility and antibacterial activity. This study suggests that electrospun PANI/CH membranes are promising candidates for healthcare applications, such as wound dressings.
Highlights
The wound care sector is one of the largely demanding fields in the pharmaceutical industry
This study proposes the use of inherently antibacterial polymeric nanofibers that can be used as a wound dressing, potentially enabling reduced usage of antibiotics
3.1.1 Effect of Polymer Concentration In Figures 1A-1F, the nanofibre morphology obtained for the electrospun 5%w/v and 3%w/v solutions in a TFA/DCM solvent system at different combinations of applied voltage and humidity are presented
Summary
The wound care sector is one of the largely demanding fields in the pharmaceutical industry. Contributors to this large demand for wound care are those suffering from acute and chronic wounds. Many patients lack available donor sites and are at high risk of chronic wounds suffering from problematic healing. Antibiotics have been proven to be very useful against wound infections, it has been reported that their use can be associated with complications such as renal and liver toxicity and the emergence of drug-resistant bacteria is one of this centuries global healthcare challenges [2]. This study proposes the use of inherently antibacterial polymeric nanofibers that can be used as a wound dressing, potentially enabling reduced usage of antibiotics
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