Preparation and Properties of Electrospun Cellulose Acetate Fibers Containing Rosemary, Clove, and Thyme Essential Oils

Single-needle electrospinning and needle-free electrospinning were applied to fabricate cellulose acetate (CA) fibrous mats containing rosemary (RO), clove (CL) and thyme (TH) essential oils (EO) from binary or ternary solvent mixture solutions. When an acetone, dichloromethane, and dimethylformamide mixture was used as the solvent system, cylindrical nanofibers with an average diameter between 255 and 617 nm were obtained. Removing dimethylformamide from the spinning solution resulted in flattened microfibers with significantly larger diameters, varying from 1242 to 2939 nm. Furthermore, CA nanofibers loaded with RO, CL or TH essential oils with diameter distributions ranging from 55 to 176 nm, from 69 to 215 nm and from 44 to 291 nm, respectively, were produced from ternary solvent mixture solutions using needle-free electrospinning equipment. FTIR and TGA studies revealed the incorporation of essential oils into the fiber structure, and GC-MS was used to evaluate the release of bioactive components from fibrous mats. The electrospun nanofibers of CA/RO, CA/CL and CA/TH showed excellent antioxidant activity and antimicrobial properties against Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Listeria monocytogenes. In addition, the CA/CL fibrous mat was tested in the storage of fresh beef steaks.