Electrospun Fibrous Nanocomposite Membrane for UV Shielding Applications

In this paper, UV shielding properties of the fibrous composite membranes of PVA and ZnO have been studied and analyzed. Two kinds of approches have been adopted to prepare the fibrous membrane and their corresponding effect on shielding properties have also been systematically studied. It has been observed that the pure PVA fibrous membrane with a wavelength longer than 230 nm could not be filtered which predicted that transparency of the pure PVA samples for both UVA and UVB radiations. In the case of DDM derived composite membrane, UV radiations in the range from 200 to 365 nm have been efficiently absorbed by the sample. The ISM-PVA/ZnO exhibit impressive UV shielding nature which effectively filtered the whole range of UV radiation especially for both UV-B (280-315 nm) and UV-A (315-400 nm). The transmittance results indicate a significant improvement of the UV absorbing property of ISM derived ZnO/PVA. Considering the simplicity of the fabrication of the composite materials, this work might become very useful for commercial exploitation.