Preparation Of Electrospun Micro/Nano Fibers/Cotton Fibers Composite Yarns And Their Drug Release Research

With the continuous improvement of living standards, the functionality request on knitted fabrics becomes higher and higher besides good wearing properties in recent years. Nano technology is highly introduced for the research and development of normal yarns. The yarns or fabrics with good wearing properties and abundant functionalities have a high technical content, high value-added and broad market prospects, impelling many scholars continuously to combine nanotechnology with traditional textile and develop a great variety of functional textiles, which are satisfying people’s growing consumer demand and injecting new energy and content to the traditional textile field.Among manufacturing methods of nanometer materials, Electrospinning has the advantages of simple equipment, easy operation, wide source of raw materials and hardly changing the bulk materials, making it a exclusive method to produce nanofibers directly and continuously. Through the combination of electrospinning process and traditional spinning technology, the functional composite yarns exhibited excellent properties of nanofibers besides the performance of the traditional yarn, and enhancing the extra value of the traditional yarn.In this paper, the preparation of micro/nano fibers was done by a specially designed bulk preparation device whose spinning productivity was more than100times over the traditional single-needle electrospinning machine. Besides, the device was easy to operate and maintain, solving the problem of needle clogging. We had successfully made micro/nano fibers containing antibacterial agent through the electrospinning and obtained composite cotton web combining micro/nano-fiber with cotton fiber. A optimized route was designed for the preparation of the composite yarn (fabric). At the same time, we systematically studied the influence of antibacterial agent concentration, spinning time on the basic properties of yarns, antibacterial agent concentration and slow-release performance of fabrics. Besides, the antibacterial effects of composite fabrics were predicted according to the antibacterial agent concentration of fabrics and the release behavior of antibacterial agent in PBS buffer.Results of the trial indicated that the addition of electrospun PAN micro/nano fibers had no effect on linear density, strength, evenness and other properties of yarns. The performance of the composite yarns was good enough to completely meet the requirements of testing; A certain number of micro/nano fibers could be observed from composite yarns surface and inside with a micro/nano level diameter.The data about the antimicrobial concentration of composite fabrics ranged from456to1110mg/kg. According to the data retrieved from the NPIRS and literatures, the triclosan concentration of each composite fabric was higher than that of textile products on the market, but less than that of other daily necessities, so we could predict the composite fabrics had certain antimicrobial properties.Electrospun PAN micro/nano fibers had obvious sustained release pattern for triclosan. The biggest release dosage of each group had not reached the actual content of drug loading. Meanwhile, the greater the composite fabric loaded drug, the lower it eventually released. This could be because of the triclosan reaching its maximum solubility in PBS buffer.