Antimicrobial electrospun nanofiber mats of NaOH-hydrolyzed chitosan (HCS)/PVP/PVA incorporated with in-situ synthesized AgNPs: Fabrication, characterization, and antibacterial activity.

This work aims to improve the electrospinability and antibacterial activity of chitosan (CS) - based nanofibers. Three approaches consisting of reducing molecular weight of CS by NaOH hydrolysis (HCS), blending with two carrying polymers (polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)) and incorporating with in-situ synthesized silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were integrated simultaneously for the first time to fabricate the HCS-AgNPs/PVP/PVA multicomponent nanofibers. The electrospinning parameters were optimized to obtain the smooth and uniform nanofibers without beads of both HCS/PVP/PVA and HCS-AgNPs/PVP/PVA systems.