Conductive and anti-bacterial self-bundled nanofibrous yarns from electrostatic induction of Keggin polyoxometalates

Abstract

A facile and effective means of nanofibres’ self-twisting is pioneered under a strong electrostatic induction during electrospinning process. The assembly of self-bundled nanofibre yarns is driven by the attractive forces induced by the interactions between highly charged and ionic tungsten (VI) in ammonium metatungstate that bonds with cyanide group of polyacrylonitrile under the electric field during electrospinning process. The nanofibre yarns are further photo-deposited with silver nitrate and graphene oxide dispersion to obtain electrically conductive and anti-bacterial properties. Tenacity and breaking strain of the Ag/GO modified nanofibre yarns improve more than 10-fold and 60% of the nanofibre yarns, respectively. Moreover, the Ag/GO modified nanofibre yarn shows >99.98% anti-bacterial against both gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and gram-negative (Klebsiella pneumoniae) bacteria.