Nanofibre non-wovens of keratin/polyamide 6 blends for high efficiency active-filtration

Keratin was extracted from wool and blended with polyamide 6 in formic acid as the co-solvent, in order to obtain blend solutions suitable for electrospinning. Keratin-based nanosized fibre mats were produced and tested for heavy metal removal from water solutions. A preliminary study was conducted on films produced by casting, in order to investigate the miscibility of keratin with polyamide 6 in different proportions. Successively, blend solutions were characterized by viscosity measurements and then electrospun under different operating conditions. Fibre morphology and diameter distributions were correlated with the blending ratios. Moreover, the influence of keratin amount and the processing method (cast or electrospinning) on the supramolecular organization of the polyamide 6 chains was studied.