Morphology and Mechanical Properties of electrospun PVA-TiO2 Nanocomposite Nanofibers

PVA-based electrospun nanocomposite nanofibers have various advantages for a wide range of applications.In this work, PVA and PVA/TiO2 electrospun nanocomposite scaffolds were fabricated by tuning the process conditionsin order to obtain bead-free and uniform nanofibers with a diameter beneath 100nm and reasonable mechanical properties.The morphology and mechanical properties of prepared scaffolds were examined by scanning electron microscopy anduniversal testing machine, respectively. The results showed that as the amount of TiO2 nanoparticles loaded in PVAincreased up to 2 wt. %, the diameter of nanofibers increased from 88±5nm to 105±5nm. The tensile test results indicatedincreasing elastic modulus of nanocomposite nanofibers, but decreasing its strength and elongation at break in compareto neat PVA sample.

Keywords:

PVA , Electrospinning , TiO2 , Mechanical properties , Nanofibers , Nanocomposite