Polyacrylonitrile/Syzygium aromaticum hierarchical hydrophilic nanocomposite as a carrier for antibacterial drug delivery systems

Abstract

Versatile maneuverable electrospinning process was exploited to fabricate intertwined heterostructure polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofibers with average diameter of 141.4 nm by incorporating essential oil Syzygium aromaticum for antibacterial drug delivery systems. We have demonstrated the formation of seamless heterostructure of PAN/Syzygium aromaticum nanocomposites by incorporating 0.1% electrolyte solution, which not only achieved inhibition zone of 1.8–2.8 cm against Gram positive and Gram negative bacteria but also exhibited 100% cell viability of NIH/3T3 cell lines. Electrospun fibers were observed to be flexible and composed of continuous, cylindrical and randomly oriented fibers. FT-IR peak at 3398 cm⁻¹ reveals the ultra wettabililty nature of nanocomposite which was confirmed by the contact angle measurement. Further, the Korsmeyer–Peppas model was explored to study the mechanism and kinetics of the antibacterial drug release system. Overall result suggests that electrospinning can be employed as a novel, facile route for the large scale fabrication of nanoscale PAN heterostructure hydrophilic composite for broad range of biomedical applications.