Keratin/poly (vinyl alcohol) blended nanofibers with high optical transmittance

Abstract In this paper, we presented the fabrication of human hair derived keratin/poly(vinyl alcohol) composite nanofibers exhibiting high optical transmittance by using simple and versatile electrospinnig technique. Keratin was extracted from human hair by sulphitolysis process and glyoxal solution was used as crosslinking agent in the system. More interestingly, the high optical transmittance (∼88% at a wave length of 600 nm) of the composite was achieved by simply immersing it in water without adding any additive. Furthermore, the tensile strength and Young's Modulus of the transparent composite nanofibers were also found to be increased (19 and 272.8 MPa) as compared to the PVA nanofibers (10.7 and 72.4 MPa).