Fabrication of electrospun poly(methyl methacrylate) nanofibrous membranes by statistical approach for application in enzyme immobilization

Response surface methodology based on a five-level, five-variable central composite rotatable design was used to model the average diameter of electrospun poly(methyl methacrylate) nanofibers. The effects studied include polymer concentration, distance, temperature, flow rate, and voltage. Fiber diameter was correlated to these variables by using a second-order polynomial function at a 95% confidence level. The analysis confirmed that polymer concentration, temperature, flow rate, and voltage were the significant factors affecting the diameter with the first three being the most significant ones. Also, no interaction effect terms were found to be significant. The coefficient of determination of the model was found to be 0.9443. The predicted fiber diameters were in agreement with the experimental results. The adequacy of the model was examined using additional independent experiments that were not employed in the model generation to fabricate 100–500 nm fibers with the average absolute relative deviation being 3.55%. A minimum fiber diameter of 36 nm was established and could be validated by experiments. When used for immobilization of Candida rugosa lipase by adsorption, the nanofibrous membranes provided enzyme loading as high as 332 mg lipase/g fibers, which is 5.2 times the reported maximum value.