Thermal behavior of electrospun gelatin and chitosan complex

This paper studied the thermal behavior of gelatin, chitosan, and their complex. Thermal stability was analyzed by thermogravimetric analysis, and the results showed that gelatin and chitosan raw materials exhibited two decomposition stages while as-electrospun nanofibrous mats had three decomposition stages. Moreover, chitosan raw material had better thermal stability than gelatin. However, its electrospun partner revealed its opposite trend. X-ray diffraction was used to analyze the crystalline property and the result showed that the crystallinity decreased due to the interaction with the solvents, and thus the thermal stability sharply decreased. In addition, incorporation of gelatin could improve the thermal stability of chitosan.