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Filtration performance of electrospun polyamide nanofibres loaded with bactericides

Sander De Vrieze, Nele Daels, Karel Lambert, Bjorge Decostere, Zeger Hens, Stijn Van Hulle and Karen De Clerck Textile Research Journal 2012 82: 37 originally published online 2 August 2011 DOI: 10.1177/0040517511416273 The online version of this article can be found at: http://trj.sagepub.com/content/82/1/37

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Orignal article

Filtration performance of electrospun polyamide nanofibres loaded with bactericides

Sander De Vrieze1, Nele Daels2, Karel Lambert1, Bjorge Decostere2, Zeger Hens1, Stijn Van Hulle2 and Karen De Clerck1

Textile Research Journal 82(1) 3744 ! The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0040517511416273 trj.sagepub.com

Abstract Electrospinning is a process to generate nanofibrous nonwovens. With these nonwovens, many applications can be targeted, such as water filtration. In this paper, polyamide nanofibrous membranes are evaluated for their pore size, a key parameter in water filtration, and for their removal of microorganisms. To increase the removal efficiency to values exceeding the state of the art, innovative functionalization of the nanofibres is studied. The nanofibrous membranes are functionalized using a one step method. Different functionalization chemicals are investigated which are Ag nanoparticles and bactericides. Ag functionalized nanofibres are used as a reference medium to compare with a novel bactericide based functionalization system. It is seen that nanofibrous membranes functionalized with the bactericides exceed the normal removal efficiencies obtained by microfiltration membranes. Furthermore, knowledge is built up on how these bactericides are inserted in the nanofibres themselves.

Keywords Electrospinning, water filtration, microorganisms

Introduction
Electrospinning is an innovative process, capable of producing bres with diameters typically one to two orders of magnitude lower than extrusion and conventional solution-spun bres. A variety of polymers can be spun, each from a specic solution. In addition, the ability to produce highly porous nanobrous membranes with structural integrity is also an attractive feature of electrospinning.13 Electrospun materials oer opportunities, for example, in medical applications,4 ltration5 and protective clothing.6 When using nanobrous membranes in applications, large homogeneous samples are needed. Therefore a reproducible method of nozzle electrospinning is needed to supply these homogeneous samples. This method is called steady state electrospinning.7 Electrospinning is in steady state when the amount of polymer that is transported through the needle per unit time equals the amount of polymer that is deposited as nanobres on the collector per unit time. This

denition comprises two conditions. The rst condition is that in time all the polymer that is spun from the nozzle and collected at the target is converted into nanobres, implying the absence of beads or drops in the structure. The second condition for steady state electrospinning is a stable, time invariant, Taylor cone. Steady state electrospinning allows for the long term stability needed for producing reproducible samples of any desired size. As shown in previous work,7 obtaining steady state electrospinning conditions is possible only if the right solvent mixture is used for the selected polymer, that is, the solvent mixture formic

1 2

Ghent University, Belgium. University College West Flanders, Belgium.

Corresponding author: Karen De Clerck, Ghent University, Technologiepark 907, Gent 9000, Belgium Email: karen.declerck@UGent.be

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38 acid/acetic acid for polyamide 6 and polyamide 6.6. Moreover specic process and ambient parameters are needed to obtain reproducible samples. This condition is a fundamental view in electrospinning that gives the possibility to generate homogeneous nonwovens that are applicable in demanding areas such as liquid ltration. Polyamide nanobres made by electrospinning have been extensively studied.810 Most of the research focuses on the inuence of dierent parameters on the obtained materials or the use of polyamide nanobres in air ltration. The use of nanobres in the area of liquid ltration is not fully explored yet, although some initial performance assessment was already reported in our previous work.1113 In this initial work, the performance of unfunctionalized membranes was explored. Because of their specic pore size, electrospun nonwovens can be used in the class of microltration.14 Electrospun nonwovens are good candidates for liquid microltration because they have a high porosity when compared with conventional substrates fabricated using other means. They result in a higher hydraulic permeability than that of the conventional substrates.11 As such, they have a high clean water permeability (CWP). The CWP value of nanobrous membranes is two or three times higher than comparable microltration membranes. The unfunctionalized membranes need, however, a higher performance for certain aspects of liquid ltration such as the removal of microorganisms. Today, removal of microorganisms in water treatment is commonly done by dosing functional chemicals like bactericides in the water itself. This is not good for the ecology and the economy. As such, it would be better to work with functionalized membranes that have the ability to work with a one step removal of microorganisms. Nanobres may be a good candidate to apply and dose the bactericides well. An advantage of the unique electrospinning method is that this process is able to ne tune the surface functionalities by the incorporation of the functional chemicals during processing. So for obtaining antimicrobial functionality mostly Ag nanoparticles have been applied.10 Only recent research describes the use of other functional chemicals that are added to the electrospinning solution to obtain functional nanobrous membranes.15 Therefore in the present paper, steady state electrospinning of polyamide with incorporated chemicals is presented. After characterizing unfunctionalized nanobres, Ag nanoparticles are evaluated for their removal eciency of microorganisms as these are the main described functionalization agents in the literature. As a further innovative system, nanobres loaded with bactericides are compared with the Ag functionalized bres in respect of their removal eciency of

Textile Research Journal 82(1) microorganisms. Further knowledge is built up on how these bactericides are inserted in the nanobres themselves.

Experimental Materials
Polyamide 6 (PA 6, Mw 10000 g mol1) was supplied by Sigma-Aldrich and was used as received. Solvents chosen for this research were 98 wt% formic acid and 99.8 wt% acetic acid (both supplied by Sigma-Aldrich). Dierent biocides, thiocyanatomethylthiobenzothiazole (TCMTB), dibromocyanoacetamide (DBNPA), Bronopol (BR), WSPC (unspecied proprietary quaternary ammonium salt by Buckman) and chlorhexidine (CH), have been kindly provided by Buckman. These biocides are 99.9% pure and acid stable. Ag nanoparticle solution in isopropanol (HAG78) has been kindly provided by Umicore and was used as obtained. This solution contains nanoparticles with a size range between 5 and 100 nm. The solutions for electrospinning were prepared by dissolving dierent wt% PA 6 in a 50:50 v% formic acid/acetic acid solvent mixture. Biocides or silver nanoparticles were added in the solutions at the desired concentrations. The solutions were gently stirred with a magnetic stirrer bar for at least 3 hours at room temperature.

Methods Electrospinning. The electrospinning setup comprises

an infusion pump (KD Scientic Syringe Pump Series 100) and a high voltage source (Glassman High Voltage Series EH). A grounded aluminium foil collects the nanobrous materials. The experiments are conducted at room temperature (20 2 C) with room humidity (45 3%). A BN-1838 Terumo mixing needle is used to perform the experiments. The high voltage source charges the needle directly (DC+). The ow rate of the solution is set on 2 mL h1. The tip to collector distance is set at 6 cm. The applied voltage is changed to obtain steady state.

Scanning electron microscopy analysis. The morphology of the electrospun nanobres was examined using a scanning electron microscope (Jeol Quanta 200 F FE-SEM) at an accelerating voltage of 20 kV. Prior to scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis, the sample was coated with gold using a sputter coater (Balzers Union SKD 030). The diameter of a certain set was calculated by taking an average of 50 measurements.

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De Vrieze et al.

39 concentration in a 50:50 formic acid/acetic acid mixture. These optimal electrospinning parameters are based on previous work.7 The results are summarized in Table 1. The results show that there is an inuence of the thickness of the membrane. When the grammage increases, the minimum and maximum pore size decreases. The thicker a nanobrous membrane is, the more layers of nylon nanobres are randomly put on each other. The increase in layers results in a longer tortuous path. This increase in tortuosity eventually results in lower maximum and minimum pore sizes. As such a smaller range of pore sizes is obtained. The average diameter of the nanobres has an eect on the maximum pore size of the membrane. When comparing the same grammages, a smaller average diameter results in a smaller maximal pore size. This is caused by the packing of the nanobres: the smaller the diameter of the nanobres, the closer the packing can be. As to determine the optimal ltration class for possible end application, the maximum pore size in Table 1 is to be considered. Indeed, if a particle is bigger than the maximum pore size, it will be ltered by the membrane. It can be seen that the maximum pore size of all the membranes is below 1 mm, but higher than 0.2 mm. These series of experiments imply that the polyamide 6 nanobrous membranes must be categorized in the class of microltration.18 When evaluating the removal of microorganisms, unfunctionalized nanobrous membranes (average bre diameter: 160 nm) were tested without any supportive layer. These polyamide nanobrous membranes can lter these bacteria, expressed as CFU out of the waste water. After evaluation, the unfunctionalized nanobrous membranes exhibit a log removal of 1.7 0.3. This removal corresponds with an absolute removal eciency of almost 98%. This ltration

Transmission electron microscopy analysis. The

nanobrous material is analyzed with a JEOL 2200 FS, type 200 kV Cs-corrected electron microscope.

Bubble point test. The bubble point test is a method

for the determination of the minimum and the maximum diameter of the pores of a material. The bubble point test is performed on a CFP-1100-AEX. This method uses a wet membrane that is pressurized (N2) at one side.16

Removal of colony forming units (CFU). To evaluate

the removal of microorganisms, water samples were taken from waste water from a general hospital (107 108 CFU/100 mL). These tests were performed in a ow through system11 in which the samples (100 mL) were ltered over a functionalized nanobre membrane (0.0011 m2) with a pressure lter (11.5 bar) in a deadend ltration cell, grounded on a lter support. The ltration cell was previously autoclaved at 121 C for 15 min. Water samples were collected and diluted as needed. Further the culturable microorganisms were enumerated by inoculation in a nutrient agar culture medium (www.oxoid.com) at 37 C for 48 h.17 The removal of microorganisms is expressed in a logarithmic removal scale called log removal. For instance: when there is a log 3 removal, this means that there are 1000 times less microorganisms after ltration. This corresponds to an absolute removal eciency of 99.9 %. absolute removal efficiency number of CFU before filtration 1 number of CFU after filtration log removal   number of CFU before filtration log number of CFU after filtration

Results and discussion Evaluation of the unfunctionalized nanofibrous structures

One of the key specications of a lter material is its pore size. This is the key parameter that determines the optimum ltration class to which the envisaged material may belong. Therefore the pore size of eight dierent electrospun PA 6 membranes is evaluated by the bubble point test. There are three dierent average diameter sizes: 80, 120 and 160 nm. These sizes are selected because of their broad range. These sizes correspond with three dierent electrospinning solutions: 11, 13 and 16 wt% PA 6

Table 1. Bubble point test results for different PA 6 nanofibres Diameter nm 80 120 Grammage (g m2) 25 50 25 50 100 25 50 100 Min. pore size nm 250 150 220 120 110 360 200 170 Max. pore size nm 400 330 440 390 270 550 490 340

160

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Textile Research Journal 82(1)

Incorporation of Ag nanoparticles in polyamide 6 nanofibres

Ag nanoparticles have a biocidal eect against CFU.13 Therefore, they are investigated in this study. PA 6 solutions of 16 wt% in a 50:50 formic acid/acetic acid mixture were prepared. Silver nanoparticles were inserted in the polymeric solution at 1% of the total weight of the polymer. The original dispersion of Ag nanoparticles is in isopropanol. The combination of the isopropanol with the formic acid/acetic acid mixture has an inuence on the process itself. To obtain steady state electrospinning with these solutions, a change in applied voltage is necessary. Electrospinning unfunctionalized PA 6 solutions of 16 wt% in a 50:50 v% of formic acid/acetic acid with the settings at a ow rate 2 mL h1 and a Tip to Collector Distance (TCD) of 6 cm needs 20 kV to obtain steady state conditions.7 The voltage must increase to 26 kV to obtain steady state conditions for the 1% Ag nanoparticles addition. The increase can be caused by the addition of the isopropanol to the polymer solution and the change of the dielectric properties of the solution because of the insertion of the Ag nanoparticles. The nanobrous material itself has only minor changes (Figure 2). This observation is conrmed by diameter measurements. The average diameter varies from 172 19 to 180 26 nm, which is statistically insignicant (t-test, p 0.03). It is not possible to visually determine if there are silver nanoparticles present in the nanobres with SEM. Although an energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) scan during SEM measurements indicates that the sample contains silver. Therefore, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analysis is used to study the 1% Ag functionalized nanobrous material (Figure 3). The nanobres (light grey) contain dierent black spots. These black spots are, conrmed with EDX, silver particles. Figure 3b shows that the Ag nanoparticles have a wide range of diameters, ranging from 5 nm to over 50 nm. This is in line with the specication of the original HAG78 solution. More interesting is, however, the very dierent distribution of nanoparticles in Figure 3a and b. Screening several images showed that there is no uniform distribution of nanoparticles all over the nanobrous sample. Indeed at some positions a very low concentration of nanoparticles is found (Figure 3a) and at other locations a relatively high concentration can be found (Figure 3b). This may be attributed to a local clustering in the solution before spinning. Further research on the homogeneity of the distribution of the nanoparticles is therefore necessary. It is however also important to note that within a local region of high concentration (typical Figure 3b) the nanoparticles are homogeneously distributed.

Figure 1. Unfunctionalized PA 6 nanofibres filtering CFU.

result is based purely on mechanical ltration, where the CFU is regarded as a particle. This means that the eciency of ltration is related to particle size. If the microorganism is bigger than the pore, it will be ltered (Figure 1). Since the nonwoven nanobrous network tends to open when pressurized, the nanobrous lter pore size is not absolute. A way to solve this problem is to add a supportive layer on the back of the nanobrous membrane.12 Indeed, in Decostere et al. 12 the use of a supportive layer similarly increased the log removal of pathogens increases from 1.5 0.3 to 2.2 0.3. The supportive layer helps to resist rupture by water pressure. The log removal of CFU increases to 2.7 0.3 with the supportive layer. The absolute removal increases to 99.8%. Previous work stresses that the nanobrous membranes have an advantage for water ltration because of their high hydraulic permeability, resulting in high CWP values.11 However, the removal of microorganisms is very important in certain ltration streams. Normal log removal eciency of commercial microltration membranes are in the order of log 4.13 These commercial membranes are typically made by phase inversion. Nanobrous membranes have the potential to improve the removal eciency of microorganisms.19 However, as seen above, unfunctionalized nanobres do not generate an improvement. Therefore, the route to investigate is the functionalization of the nanobrous membranes. First Ag nanoparticles are used as a reference as this is the most applied functionalization method in the literature.2021 The major aim is, however, to evaluate the performance of membranes functionalized with various biocides.

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41

Figure 2. SEM images of PA 6 nanofibres with (a) 0 and (b) 1% incorporated Ag nanoparticles.

Figure 3. TEM images of PA 6 nanofibres with (a) and (b) 1% Ag nanoparticles.

These TEM images make it clear that the nanoparticles do not group at the surface of the bres. No agglomeration of the nanoparticles was observed, contrary to other research, such as that reported by Tekmen et al.21 Electrospun Ag functionalized nanobrous membranes generated a log 4 removal of CFU, which is already signicantly better than the unfunctionalized nanobrous membranes. It is to be noted that a more homogeneous distribution of the silver nanoparticles in the nanobres may even further improve the removal eciency. This is however beyond the scope of the present paper. In this study, the current Ag functionalized nanobrous membranes obtained, will be used as a reference to evaluate the performance of a membrane functionalized with bactericides.

Incorporation of bactericides in polyamide 6 nanofibres

Today, a wide range of bactericides is used in water treatment by direct addition to the water. This is,

however, not an acceptable procedure for all end users. This paper will study the incorporation of the bactericides in a nanobrous structure as an innovative alternative with an obvious ecofriendly dosing. PA 6 solutions of 16 wt% in a 50:50 formic acid/ acetic acid mixture were prepared. The bactericides are inserted in the spinning solution at concentrations of 1, 3 and 5%. Electrospinning of all these dierent solutions was possible but again the applied voltage needed to be altered to obtain steady state. Table 2 compares the applied voltage needed for the dierent solutions. Again, the unfunctionalized PA 6 solution needs 20 kV to obtain steady state conditions. The values that are described in Table 2 are in line with the literature describing the eect of salts in electrospinning.22 Adding dierent bactericides increases the applied voltage needed. This increase is relatively low for the bactericides DBNPA, Bronopol and chlorhexidine, whereas for the bactericide TCMTB the increase is very high, probably because of its chemical constitution. WSCP has the lowest increase in applied voltage.

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42 This eect is caused by the nature of WSCP, which is a quaternary ammonium salt. The charges in the WSCP do not have a large negative eect on the electrospinning process. The produced materials are analyzed with SEM to study the structure of the nonwoven, as well as to measure the average bre diameter. All applied bactericides were found to allow electrospinning of uniform nanobrous material, except for the use of TCMTB. The insertion of TCMTB does alter the nonwoven structure of the nanobres (Figure 4). Above a concentration of 3%, small nanobres are split away from the normal nanobrous structure

Textile Research Journal 82(1) (Figure 4). This splitting is most noticeable in the 5% TCMTB mixture, resulting in a thick network. At this point, two nonwoven network structures exist: the normal polyamide nanobres and a secondary, even thinner nanobrous structure. The same phenomenon is seen in polymeric solutions which contain an abundance of chemical charges like chitosan.23 The splitting of the nanobres in smaller nanobres is attributed to the increase in charges and uctuations of the electrical eld close to the collector. This change in structure is only observed in minor forms for the other bactericides. Because of their inhomogeneous structure, TCMTB functionalized nanobres were not further evaluated. Table 3 shows the average nanobre diameters measured by SEM. There is no signicant change in the average bre diameter values compared to the unfunctionalized value, which is 172 19 nm. This is a positive result for the ltration properties of the membrane; due to the unchanged values for the average bre diameter, the pore size of the material will remain the same. The log removal for all these membranes are measured (Table 4). The condence level is log 0.3. The study has been repeated for the 5% WSCP and

Table 2. Applied voltage (kV) needed for steady state for different solutions (TCD 6 cm, 2 mL h1) (%) 1 3 5 TCMTB 25 29 DBNPA 22 24 25 BR 22 24 25 WSCP 21 22 22 CH 22 24 25

Figure 4. PA 6 nanofibres with (a) 1 (b) 3 and (c) 5 % TCMTB.

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De Vrieze et al.
Table 3. Average fibre diameter (nm) for the different nanofibrous nonwovens (%) 1 3 5 DBNPA 145 20 146 23 155 29 BR 161 21 162 25 168 18 WSCP 167 19 167 22 176 22 CH 163 17 158 21 167 24

43 Funding
This research received no specic grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-prot sectors.

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Table 4. Log removal of CFU for different functionalized PA 6 membranes (%) 1 3 5 Ag nano 4 DBNPA 3.5 4.5 BR 4 4.5 5.7 WSCP 5.2 5.3 5.5 CH 4 4 4.2

Bronopol samples. With an increase in % of the bactericide in the nanobres, the log removal also increases. WSCP and Bronopol show the highest removals that correspond with absolute removals of 99.9997 and 99.9998%. These values are extremely high for microltration membranes, since common microltration membranes only obtain a log 2log 4 removal.24,25 This high removal rate shows the high potential of the functionalized nanobrous membranes for microltration. The increase in removal of the CFU is attributed to the incorporated functional chemicals. This hypothesis will be further evaluated in the future.

Conclusions
Polyamide nanobres are an exciting medium for water ltration which show high added value because of their high CWP. Unfunctionalized nanobrous membranes show however a low log removal of microorganisms. In this study, the low removal eciency is increased by functionalization. Dierent polyamide nanobrous membranes were made under steady state conditions with the insertion of chemicals and Ag nanoparticles. It is seen that the insertion of the chemicals changes the process conditions. An increase in the applied voltage, which is the driving force in electrospinning, is necessary to keep the process stable. The diameter of the functionalized polyamide nanobres does not change signicantly. The average diameter is 160 nm, with low standard deviation. We observe that the nanobres functionalized with 5% Bronopol and WSCP exceed a log 5 removal of CFU. This is higher than the values for common microltration membranes. With these properties, the nanobrous membranes can be used in high demanding applications, such as the ltration of process water.

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44
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Textile Research Journal 82(1)

Ni ternary alloy nanoparticles. J Mater Proc Technol 2010; 210(3): 451455. Jin M, Zhang X, Nishimoto S, Liu Z, Tryk D, Murakami T, et al. Large-scale fabrication of Ag nanoparticles in PVP nanofibres and net-like silver nanofibre films by electrospinning. Nanotechnology 2007; 18(7): 17. De Vrieze S, Westbroek P, Van Camp T and Van Langenhove L. Electrospinning of chitosan nanofibrous structures: feasibility study. J Materials Sci 2007; 42(19): 80298034. Gomez M, De la Rua A, Garralon G, Plaza F, Hontoria E and Gomez MA. Urban wastewater disinfection by filtration technologies. Desalination 2006; 190(1): 1628. Sadr Ghayeni S, Beatson A and Schneider R. Bacterial passage through microfiltration membranes in wastewater applications. J Membrane Sci 1999; 153(1): 7182.

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