Fabrication and Characterization of Multifunctional Curcumin Loaded Poly(methyl methacrylate) Fluorescent Nanofiber Membrane.

This work aims at the development of curcumin loaded poly(methyl methacrylate) (CC-PMMA) fluorescent nanofiber membrane and the evaluation of its multifunctional characteristics. The nanofibers were created by electrospinning method. The conditions of the spinning were optimized to obtain beadless and smooth nanofibers. The physico-chemical characteristics of the nanofibers were studied by various techniques including, polarizing light microscope, FT-IR, inverted epi fluorescence microscope and HR-TEM. The HR-TEM results confirm the formation of nanofibers with the diameter in the range of 90-200 nm. The average width of PMMA and CC-PMMA nanofibers are ˜90±0.02 nm and ˜110±0.01 nm, respectively. The CC-PMMA nanofibers exhibited the fluorescence shift with an emission around 520 nm. The multifunctional characteristic of CC-PMMA nanofiber was evaluated for sensor and antibacterial applications. The CC-PMMA nanofiber membrane showed a visible color variation from yellow to red on interaction with ammonia. This colorimetric response to ammonia is highly selective and there was no any interference from other related organic vapors. In addition, it showed good antibacterial activities for Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria (zone of inhibition of 27 mm for S. aureus). This is the initial research report in the combination of curcumin and PMMA nanofiber. The multifunctionality of the CC-PMMA nanofibers could be exploited for various applications including sensors, antibacterial coatings, air filtration and drug delivery.