Polyacrylamide Grafted Electrospun Polyamide 6 Nanocomposite Fibers for Drug Delivery Application

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Polymers& Pigments Department, National Research Centre, Dokki, Giza, Egypt.

2 Chemistry Department, Faculty of Science, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.

Abstract

PA6 nanofibers have gained increasing interest as a potential candidate for medical applications. In this work, tallow modified clay (TMC) was incorporated into PA6 electrospun nanofibers. The fabricated nanocomposite fiber was chemically modified through the grafting with polyacrylamide using potassium persulfate and sodium hydrogen sulfite as redox initiation system. The effects of temperature, initiator and monomer concentrations as well as reaction duration on the grafting reaction were studied. In addition, methylene bis acrylamide, as a crosslinker, was added to obtain crosslinked polyacrylamide hydrogel layer grafted to the nanofibers. Doxycycline hydrochloride as a potent broad spectrum antibiotic was loaded to the crosslinked polyacrylamide grafted material through the swelling diffusion method.
The addition of tallow modified clay (TMC) into PA6 nanofibers dramatically influenced the morphology, thermal stability, and mechanical properties as confirmed from SEM, TGA, and mechanical testing. In addition, FTIR, SEM, TGA and contact angle measurement characterized the grafted nanofibrous mat. The crosslinked polyacrylamide grafted nanofibrous mat was assessed as a drug delivery vehicle for drug loading, drug release behavior, and antimicrobial properties. The results showed that the loaded drug released fast in both phosphate buffer saline PBS (pH 7.4) and acetate buffer (pH 5.5) and initial burst release was observed in the first two hours. Furthermore, the antimicrobial evaluation of loaded grafted nanofibrous mat against E. coli and S. aureus confirmed the antimicrobial activity of loaded materials.

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