Synthesis and Characterization of Rotary Forcespun Polyvinylpyrrolidone Fibers Loaded by Garlic (Allium sativum) Extract

Abstract

Garlic (Allium sativum) is one of the plants traditionally used for food supplement, natural medicine, and a food flavoring. Garlic has been proven to exhibit many important pharmacological activities that bring benefits for human health such as antioxidant, antimicrobial, antithrombotic, antihypertensive, cancer prevention, and lipid-lowering effects. However, the organosulfur compounds that contribute the previously mentioned activities have a high rate of degradability. In this paper, composite fibers of garlic extract encapsulated in polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) fibers are reported. The fibers were synthesized using the rotary forcespinning technique to protect organosulfur compounds from degradation and to maintain their antioxidant properties. The precursor solution was prepared by mixing 15% PVP in 50% ethanol (w/w) with garlic extract (GAE) in the ratio of 10:1, 10:3, and 10:5 (w/w). Microscopy images showed that the average diameter of fibers increases with increasing viscosity, which was the result of the higher polymer-to-extract ratio. All the fibers had smooth surfaces with no beads. The coefficient of variance (CV) of each fibers distribution was lower than 0.3, which marks the uniformity of the fibers formed. Analyses of the Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectra proved some peak differences between the PVP fibers and the PVP fibers loaded with GAE, one of them is the peak at wavenumber 1034 cm-1 indicating the presence of sulfoxide functional groups.