Singh, Sanjit
- Institutionen för växtförädling, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
Sammanfattning
Electrospinning enables the fabrication of ultrafine polymer fibers offering high surface area, interconnected porosity, and tunable chemistry for advanced wound dressing materials. Driven by sustainability goals, plant-derived proteins (zein, soy protein, wheat gluten) and polysaccharides (starch, cellulose, chitosan) are emerging as renewable potential alternatives to replace some of petroleum-based materials. In addition to plant-derived protein-polysaccharide systems, this review also discusses animal-derived proteins (collagen, gelatin, and silk fibroin), as well as microbial polymers (such as bacterial cellulose), serving as fibrous materials for understanding the structure–function relationships and bioactivity of natural electrospun fibers in absorbents and wound healing materials. These materials highlight how different protein origin and molecular architecture influences electrospinnability, mechanical integrity, and biological performance. This introductory paper also focusing on the use of various types of proteins, including wheat gluten (gliadin/glutenin) and polysaccharides such as potato starch and chitosan use in formulations, processing, and performance of fibrous materials.Natural polymers present some challenges (e.g. large solubility, instability in water, batch variability) in order to be used in absorbent and wound dressings, although these challenges can be partly mitigated through selection of greener solvent systems (ethanol/acetic-acid aqueous), polymer blending (PVA/PEO/PCL/PHA), and post-processing (citric-acid or glutaraldehyde crosslinking, heat treatment). From the plant proteins, zein easily electrospins from ethanol-rich media and efficiently loads hydrophobic active components (e.g., curcumin). Soy protein isolate typically requires water-borne blends to achieve spinnability. Wheat gluten proteins benefit from the use of reducing agents (e.g., β-mercaptoethanol or dithiothreitol), which disrupt disulfide bonds and improve chain mobility, thereby enhancing their electrospinnability. The gluten proteins can be electrospun from blended systems with ethanol–acetic acid solvents or with carrier polymers such as PEO or PVA to produce uniform and continuous fibers. The gluten proteins have been also electrospun with antimicrobial compounds (nisin, glycerol monolaurate) for active packaging and wound care.High-amylose starch improves fiber formation when electrospun into fibrous materials and enables controlled release, while CRISPR/Cas9 editing of starch branching enzymes offers a route to tailor amylose/amylopectin ratios for better electrospinnability and improve starch use in bio-based materials applications. Cellulose and chitosan are promising components which can improve the bio-based materials functional properties, though solvent choice and process optimization remain to be optimized and improved.Across systems, electrospun mats from the plant based polymers can be further explored in biobased materials to manage moisture balance, cell adhesion, and localized, sustained delivery of bioactives (including essential-oil components such as cinnamaldehyde), with potential to reduce infection and antibiotic use, though further work should be explored in the area of wound healing materials. Future priorities include the plant based protein materials and starch use for absorbents and wound healing in order to improve scalability, needleless/roll-to-roll processes with solvent recovery, robust structure–processing and processing optimization/adaptation for larger scale industrial production, as well as clinical trials (cytocompatibility, allergenicity etc.). By valorizing agricultural protein rich side streams and starch raw materials suitability for bio- 2 materials, an emphasis lays on finding new ways to improve the circular bioeconomy and advance development of novel bio-based materials for wound-care applications.
Publicerad i
Introductory paper at the Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science
2025, nummer: 2025:1
Utgivare: Faculty of Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Crop Production Science, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
SLU författare
UKÄ forskningsämne
Textil-, gummi- och polymermaterial
Publikationens identifierare
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.54612/a.391csfm96b
- ISBN: 978-91-8124-152-5
Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)
https://res.slu.se/id/publ/145092