Fabrication of Electrospun Nanofibers Polyvinyl Alcohol Incorporated by Clove Leaves Extract
Maulika Nur Hasanah (a), Abdullah Hanif Al Azzam (a), Hendri Widiyandari (b), Fitri Yola Amandita (c), Akmal Zulfi (c), Yulianto Agung Rezeki (a*)

a) Department of Physics Education, Faculty of Teacher Training and Education, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta 57126, Indonesia
b) Department of Physics, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Universitas Sebelas Maret, Surakarta 57126, Indonesia
c) Research Center for Environmental and Clean Technology, National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Bandung 40135, Indonesia
*yarezeki[at]staff.uns.ac.id

Abstract

Clove (Syzygium aromaticum L.) leaves are rich in bioactive compounds, especially eugenol, which exhibit strong antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antibacterial properties. Despite their valuable bioactive properties, clove leaves have received less attention, with most utilization of the plant focused on its flower buds. This study aims to fabricate polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) nanofibers incorporated with clove leaves extract (CLE) using electrospinning technique and evaluate its potential as an antioxidant agent. Various ratio between PVA and CLE solution were conducted to investigate their effects on fibers morphology, functional groups, crystallinity, and antioxidant activity of PVA/CLE nanofibers. SEM images analysis confirmed that lower ratio of PVA solution led to an increase in the average fibers diameter. FTIR analysis showed that the PVA/CLE nanofibers exhibited similar characteristic functional groups to those of pure CLE, indicating the successful incorporation of the CLE into the nanofiber matrices. In addition, XRD analysis showed that decreasing PVA solution ratio resulted in a decrease in nanofiber crystallinity. The antioxidant activity, evaluated using DPPH test, showed very strong antioxidant activity with an IC50 values of 0.8 to 47.5 ppm. Based on these findings, PVA/CLE nanofibers are considered promising for biomedical applications, particularly as a drug delivery system due to their bioavailability, biocompatibility, drug loading capacity, and free radical scavenging ability.

Keywords: Antioxidant- Clove leaves extract- Electrospinning- Nanofibers- Polyvinyl alcohol

Topic: Material Physics