Fabrication of grape seed polyphenols/gelatin composite fibers in aqueous by electrospinning

The grape seed polyphenols/gelatin composite fibers were prepared by electrospinning technique using self-designed heat-retaining device equipped system devices and using water as solvent. The influences of electrospinning process conditions including gelatin concentration, temperature, voltage, flow rate and the content of grape seed polyphenols on grape seed polyphenols/gelatin composite fiber morphologies were investigated. The results show that the average diameters of fibers decrease and then increase with the increasing of spinning temperature and voltage, and increase with the increasing content of grape seed polyphenols when the gelatin concentration is 24wt%. The work efficiency is improved significantly from 0.25 mL/h to 0.90 mL/h (spinning speed) by adding an appropriate amount of grape seed polyphenols. However, the beads appear on surface of the fibers, when the mass ratio of grape seed polyphenols to gelatin is over 1:30, the electrospinning solution even got worse and could not spin when mass ratio of grape seed polyphenol to gelatin is over 1:20. The composite fibers have the finest structure with average diameter of 515 nm when the concentration of gelatin is 24wt%, the mass ratio of grape seed polyphenols to gelatin is 1:50, the temperature is 55 ℃, the voltage is 20 kV, the distance is 12 cm and the flow rate is 0.90 mL/h. The addition of grape seed polyphenols not only improves the efficiency of spinning, but also causes composite nanofibers membrane to find important application in biomedical field, especially in wound dressings due to its good antimicrobial activity and crosslinking effect with gelatin.