Study of electrospun fish gelatin nanofilms from benign organic acids as solvents

Abstract

Abstract Fabrication of fish gelatin nanofilms was realized by electrospinning using low concentrations of acetic acid, malic acid and citric acid in water as binary, ternary and quaternary solvents. The study aims to explore more benign solvent for manufacturing electrospun nanofilms for food packaging application. Spinning dope properties, such as electrical conductivity, pH, surface tension, zeta potential, circular dichroism, and viscosity were measured to achieve optimum electrospinning results. Moreover, the developed gelatin nanofilms were evaluated for morphology and structural changes by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), attenuated total reflectance-fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The defect-free nanofilm was developed using acetic acid in water binary solvent (30 v/v.%) combined with fish gelatin (30 w/v.%). The malic acid and citric acid in water based binary solvents could not yield nanofilms; however, ternary and quaternary solvents presented good results. The solvents used in electrospinning did not change the gelatin primary structure; however, thermal properties were slightly modified.