Polymer Nanofibrous Material for Enzyme Immobilization

NanospiderTM method allows preparation of nanofiber sheets with desired specific mass and fiber diameter between 100-600 nm. The fiber diameter can be modified by solvent system, concentration of polymer solution, and external conditions of the electrospinning process, in particular by air humidity and temperature. We have long experience with continual electrospinning from free surface of the polymer solution and in this case we focus on polymer blend polyamide 6/chitosan nanofiber form. Chitosan is an excellent material providing biocompatibility and numerous primary amine groups. On the other hand, polyamide 6 is well known and easy-to-prepare stable polymer guaranteeing sufficient mechanical properties. Blend nanofibers containing synthetic and natural polymers are usually difficult to continuously prepare. Natural polymer bring certain inhomogeneity due to varying chemical and physical properties of each brew. We compared chitosan from four different suppliers and finally fabricated homogenous and long-term stable layers. Successfully prepared nanofiber sheets were used as a support for enzyme immobilization. We showed that our layers can be used as a carrier for numerous biomolecules.