Chemical and Morphological Modification of PAN Nanofibrous Mats with Addition of Casein after

Abstract

Electrospun polyacrylonitrile (PAN) nanofi brous mats belong to typical precursor materials of carbon nanofi bres. They have, however, the problem that they need to be fi xed or even stretched during stabilisation and ideally also during carbonisation in order to avoid undesired conglutinations and deformations of the original nanofi bre morphology, resulting in brittle behaviour of the macroscopic nanofi brous mat, which impedes several applications. In an earlier investigation, blending PAN with ZnO was shown to increase fi bre diameters and lead to unproblematic stabilisation and carbonisation of nanofi brous mats. ZnO, on the other hand, may have a negative impact on biotechnological applications such as tissue engineering. Here, we thus report on the morphological and chemical modifi cations due to blending PAN electrospinning solutions with diff erent amounts of casein. By optimising the PAN : casein ratio, relatively thick, straight nanofi bres are obtained, which can be stabilised and carbonised unambiguously, without the well-known negative impact on cell adhesion due to the addition of ZnO.