Silver Sulfadiazine Encapsulated Polycaprolactone‐Zein Hybrid Nanofibers as a Wound Dressing

ABSTRACT Recently, there has been a lot of interest in the incorporation of silver sulfadiazine (SSD) in nanofibrous polymer matrixes as an antibacterial wound dressing biomaterial. This study introduces the fabrication and characterization of a novel wound dressing made of polycaprolactone‐zein (PCL‐ZI) hybrid nanofibers loaded with different concentrations of SSD for wound regeneration applications. Successful formation of porous nanofibers and loading of SSD are confirmed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier‐transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), respectively. Nanofibers with a mean diameter ranging from 550 to 750 nm were fabricated. Hybrid nanofibers demonstrated better surface wettability than pure PCL nanofibers with desirable porosity (above 60%) and tensile strength of 0.92–3.02 MPa. Furthermore, our findings showed concentration‐dependent antibacterial properties and a prolonged release characteristic of SSD for up to 96 h. Antibacterial tests were used to assess the nanofibers' antibacterial ability versus Gram‐positive ( Staphylococcus aureus ) and Gram‐negative ( Escherichia coli ) bacterial strains. The results showed that SSD‐containing fibers well inhibited bacterial growth, indicating the bactericidal effect of SSD. In vitro cell studies indicated that high concentrations of SSD induced some degree of toxicity to the skin cells. As an example, after 7 days of cell culturing, in vitro findings showed that the incorporation of SSD up to 0.5 wt.% resulted in 97% cell viability compared to 83% viability with a high amount of SSD (1 wt.%). Taken together, the introduced antibacterial hybrid nanofiber scaffold herein holds great promise as a wound dressing for skin damage healing.