Starch-graft-polyacrylonitrile nanofibers by electrospinning

Graft copolymer starch-graft-polyacrylonitrile (St-g-PAN) was synthesized by homo-grafting acrylonitrile (AN) from water soluble starch as Ce(IV) was used as an initiator. St-g-PAN nanofibers were prepared via electrospinning St-g-PAN solution in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO). The effects of the spinning parameters such as flow rate, spinning voltage, and collector distance on the St-g-PAN nanofiber diameter were investigated. Fourier transform infrared spectra (FT-IR), solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (13C NMR) and scanning electron microscope (SEM) were used to characterize the structure and surface morphology of the nanofibers. The results showed that the nanofiber diameter depended strongly on the processing parameters. Moreover, the nanofiber had good water resistance, biocompatibility, and tensile intensity. As the cyano groups on St-g-PAN nanofibers were transformed to amidoxime groups, the obtained St-g-PAO nanofiber displayed an excellent adsorption ability, with the adsorption of Cr 533.4 mg·g−1 at pH = 2.0 as K2Cr2O7 solution 500 mg·L−1 in water was used as the adsorption target. Therefore, these St-g-PAN nanofibers may find potential applications in a wide variety of fields such as tissue engineering, pharmaceutics, energy, and environmental science and engineering.