Evaluation of antibacterial properties of electrospun polyurethane-chitosan nanofiber media

The accumulation of airborne bioaerosols on filtration media and their gradual proliferation in the presence of appropriate moisture and environmental conditions is one of the major problems against using these media.The use of hybrid media containing antibacterial agents is one of the available solutions to this problem. The present study was aimed to fabricate nonwoven nanofiber media with antibacterial activity using electrospinning process.

Polyurethane-chitosan nanofiber media with weight ratios of 100 to 0, 90 to 10, 80 to 20, and 70 to 30 were fabricated by simultaneous electrospinning process. After preparation of the nanofiber media, their antibacterial properties were evaluated by standard methods of disk diffusion (ISO 20645) and colony counting (ISO 20743).

The bacterial growth inhibition zones gradually are formed around the examined samples by adding the layers of chitosan nanofibers to the polyurethane media indicating the antibacterial activity of these substrates. The evaluation of antibacterial activity of samples by both methods showed that the media with polyurethane to chitosan weight ratio of 70 to 30 had suitable antibacterial activity. The mean value of bacterial growth inhibition zone and antibacterial activity for polyurethane-chitosan (70/30) media were 0.226 mm and 2.222, respectively.

Evaluating the antibacterial activity of prepared nanofiber media indicated that antibacterial nanofiber media can be created by adding chitosan nanofibers as antimicrobial agents to the polyurethane nanofiber.