Development of Electrospun Fish Gelatin/Silver/Poly(lactic acid) Nanofibers

Abstract

In this work, the evaluation of fish scales (FS), which is an organic waste of the fishing industry and cannot be recycled, was studied. FS was cleaned and dried before being used as fish gelatin (FG) in the electrospinning process. A polymer solution of PLA was used as a carrier for FG and silver nanoparticles (Ag). The amount of PLA and Ag was kept constant for each electrospinning solution while FG was added in three different ratios (0.5 %, 1 % and 2 %). The electrospinning process was carried out at 0.5 mL/h feeding rate, 11 kV applied voltage and 10 cm collector distance. Obtained nanofibrous surfaces were characterized via X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectrophotometely (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX). The results confirmed porous fiber formation which has potential use in many fields, such as filtration, biomedical and healthcare applications.