Electrospun Polycaprolactone Nanofibrous Webs Containing Cu–Magnetite/Graphene Oxide for Cell Viability, Antibacterial Performance, and Dye Decolorization from Aqueous Solutions

Abstract

Fine powder of magnetite nanoparticles (MNPs) was doped with different contents of copper (Cu) through a mat of graphene oxide (GO) nanosheets. These compositions were incorporated into electrospun nanofibrous membranes of polycaprolactone (PCL). Mechanical properties were measured, and examining the ability of these nanofiber membranes to remove methylene blue (MB) dyes from aqueous solutions was also assessed. TEM of the resulting nanofibers has a diameter of the order of 300 nm. Moreover, the morphological features of membranes showed that diameters were varied upon the variation of dopant (Cu ions) starting from 0.35–1.06 μm and 1.8–3.9 μm at no Cu reaching 0.19–0.45 μm and 0.75–1.42 μm for the highest contribution of Cu, whereas GO scattered grains of 0.56–1.5 μm were detected. The tensile strength was changed accordingly and reached around 8.96 ± 0.45 MPa, while the toughness achieved 4.69 ± 0.29 MJ/m3 at the highest additional dopant. The designed nanofibrous membrane was able to remove 95.1% MB after 36 min of continuous exposure, while the reusability indicated that the composition was stable after 5 times of removal with efficiency around 90.1% for the 0.8Cu–MNPs–GO@PCL. The antibacterial efficiency was also investigated against both E.coli and S. aureus, and the inhibition zone recorded around 11.4 ± 1.5 and 11.1 ± 1.7 mm in dark and 15.6 ± 2.1 and 13.6 ± 1.8 mm, respectively, at the highest contribution of Cu dopant. This behavior of the manipulated nanofibrous membrane indicates that tailoring of multi-functional nanomaterials could be reached via designing scaffold-based electrospun technique.