Elsevier

Carbohydrate Polymers

Volume 247, 1 November 2020, 116705
Carbohydrate Polymers

Review
Electrospun fibers based on carbohydrate gum polymers and their multifaceted applications

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2020.116705Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Electrospinning of plant- and microbial-based carbohydrate gums is discussed.

  • Electrospinning parameters with respect to gums are illustrated.

  • Applications of carbohydrate gum-derived electrospun fibers are exemplified.

Abstract

Electrospinning has garnered significant attention in view of its many advantages such as feasibility for various polymers, scalability required for mass production, and ease of processing. Extensive studies have been devoted to the use of electrospinning to fabricate various electrospun nanofibers derived from carbohydrate gum polymers in combination with synthetic polymers and/or additives of inorganic or organic materials with gums. In view of the versatility and the widespread choice of precursors that can be deployed for electrospinning, various gums from both, the plants and microbial-based gum carbohydrates are holistically and/or partially included in the electrospinning solution for the preparation of functional composite nanofibers. Moreover, our strategy encompasses a combination of natural gums with other polymers/inorganic or nanoparticles to ensue distinct properties. This early established milestone in functional carbohydrate gum polymer-based composite nanofibers may be deployed by specialized researchers in the field of nanoscience and technology, and especially for exploiting electrospinning of natural gums composites for diverse applications.

Introduction

Various kinds of carbohydrate polymer gums sourced from plants and microorganisms have attracted a tremendous amount of research attention recently, as they are bio-renewable and greener materials possessing diverse physical and chemical properties (Padil, Wacławek, Černík, & Varma, 2018; Zare, Makvandi, & Tay, 2019; Zare, Makvandi, Borzacchiello et al., 2019). As is abundantly documented in the literature (Ahmad, Ahmad, Manzoor, Purwar, & Ikram, 2019; Hamdani, Wani, & Bhat, 2019; Tahir et al., 2019), there are several diverse uses for carbohydrate polymer gums, which range from hydrogels, adhesives, and coatings to cosmetics. Nevertheless, to fully exploit the various kinds of carbohydrate gums for broader applications, the use of nanotechnology is indispensable for their valuable applications namely in drug delivery, wound dressing and food bioactive compounds and packaging (Jin, Prabhakaran, & Ramakrishna, 2014; Taheri & Jafari, 2019; Topuz & Uyar, 2020). Most gums comprise high molecular mass and are complex and definitely not at a nanoscale in their native states. Therefore, efforts have been made in a number of studies to design nanostructured gums (Heydary, Karamian, Poorazizi, Khandan, & Heydaripour, 2015; Soumya et al., 2014).

Among the various pathways for synthesizing nanoscale materials, electrospinning is considered as one of the most feasible synthetic option for fabricating one-dimensional nanostructures, namely nanofibers (Jain, Shetty, & Yadav, 2020; Topuz & Uyar, 2020; Xue, Wu, Dai, & Xia, 2019; Li et al., 2018; Zhao, Zhang, Lu, & Xu, 2015). While producing nanostructures from gums via electrospinning, the selection of a suitable solvent for the particular gum is an important factor, due to the limited solubility of the gums. This issue can be resolved by selecting an appropriate composition of the solvent and blend ratio between the mother polymer and the co-polymer used for the electrospinning.

Electrospinning involves several operational steps: 1) Firstly, an electrospinning solution is transferred to a syringe and a needle is placed at the tip of the syringe; 2) Part of the needle and part of the collector in the electrospinning setup are electrically connected; 3) A voltage is then applied to create an electrical field; 4) The electrical field charges the body of the liquid, and when the electrostatic repulsion is greater than the surface tension, “showering” of the liquid occurs, spinning a stream of nanofibers onto the collector.

There are many questions still to be answered as to why it is not possible to successfully electrospun gums. Several factors have been suggested in the literature, such as higher molecular distribution, complicated structural configuration (main and side chains), solubility, viscosity (intrinsic and shear), molecular chain entanglement, surface tension, vapor pressure, conductivity, gelling properties, and concentration (Bobade, Cheetham, Hashim, & Eshtiaghi, 2018; Elzain & Mariod, 2018; Padil et al., 2018; Zhang, Feng, & Zhang, 2018). However, smooth and uniform production of natural polymer nanofibers depends mainly on the molecular chain entanglement and aggregation of the polymer solution during electrospinning (Rezaei, Nasirpour, & Fathi, 2015; Sousa et al., 2015: Kong & Ziegler, 2012). In certain cases, a smooth gum electrospinning process may be attained by varying the polymer concentration, solvent composition or by blending with other polymers (natural or synthetic).

Although some research of various kinds of gums (Kumar, Rao, & Han, 2018; Thombare, Jha, Mishra, & Siddiqui, 2016; Zia et al., 2018) and their derivatives (Padil et al., 2018) has been reviewed, no systematic or comprehensive review has been presented for carbohydrate polymer gums-based composite nanofibers fabricated by electrospinning. Therefore, herein, we summarize the basic principles of electrospinning, and describe how many of these carbohydrates gum-based composite nanofibers can be fabricated by electrospinning. Among the versatile family of carbohydrate polymer gums, we have included potential commercial plant gums (guar gum (GG), arabic gum (AG), karaya gum (KG), kondagogu gum (KO), and tragacanth gum (TG), and microbial gums (xanthan gum (XG), gellan gum (Gg), pullulan gum (PU), and dextran (DX)) and their electrospun composite fibers with multifaceted applications. The structural, physical and chemical, and rheological properties of carbohydrate polymer gums, and their applications have already been extensively investigated (Luo et al., 2020; Esper, Salvador, & Sanz, 2019; Stevens, Gilmore, Wallace, & In het Panhuis, 2016; Farzi, Yarmand, Safari, Eman-Djomeh, & Mohammadifar, 2015; Kang, Guo, Phillips, & Cui, 2014; Williams & Phillips, 2009; Vinod, Sashidhar, Sarma, & Vijaya Saradhi, 2008; Vinod, Sashidhar, Suresh et al., 2008) and are therefore not described herein. During the last five years, a large number of studies have aimed at combining these gums with organic/inorganic/nanomaterials to be electrospun into functional nanofibers in a fast emerging area of active research, which necessitates further scrutiny and future direction for more advanced functional nanomaterials.

Section snippets

Electrospinning process and parameters

A schematic illustration of the electrospinning process and the types of gum-based composite nanofibers that can be fabricated from electrospinning are presented in Fig. 1.

Conventional electrospinning techniques mainly rely on needle-spinneret types, but to overcome the inherent disadvantage of the low production rate by this technique, needleless spinneret geometries such as cylindrical, sphere, wire, annulus, and string are introduced to produce multiple jets (Chen et al., 2019; Keirouz,

Xanthan gum

Xanthan gum (XG) is a polysaccharide secreted by Xanthomonas campestris and is extensively used in food, toiletries, oil recovery, cosmetics, agriculture and water-based paints etc. The application of XG in food and other industries is a consequence of its superior properties such as non-Newtonian behavior, high viscosity attained even at low concentrations, low sensitivity of viscosity to salinity changes, resistance to mechanical degradation, and higher stability and eco-friendly attributes (

Guar gum

Guar is a cluster bean gained from Cyamopsis tetragonoloba L., which is a drought-hardy leguminous crop. This polysaccharide is widely used across a broad spectrum of industries such as oil drilling, textile, paper, paint, cement, cosmetic, food, and pharmaceutical in which India is the world’s leading guar exporter (80 %). Guar consists of galactomannan chains of (1→4)-linked-β-d-mannopyranosyl units with single α-d-galactopyranosyl units connected by (1→6) linkages (Dai et al., 2017).

Conclusions and future perspectives

Multifunctional carbohydrate polymer gum-based composite nanofibers have been successfully synthesized by electrospinning and are currently being researched globally. Considering the versatile nature and appealing attributes of carbohydrate polymer gums (hydrophilic, colloidal, gelling, emulsifying, non-toxic, biodegradable, non-ionic/anionic surface charges and biocompatible) and the difficulty in reducing them to a nanoscale entity by physical means, electrospinning offers an ideal way of

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance provided by the Research Infrastructure NanoEnviCz, supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, in the framework of Project No. LM2015073. This work was also supported by the project “Tree Gum Polymers and their Modified Bioplastics for Food Packaging Application” granted by Bavarian-Czech-Academic-Agency (BTHA) (registration numbers LTAB19007 and BTHA-JC-2019-26) and the Ministry of Education, Youth and

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