Figure 1.

(A) The production of chitosan: Chitosan is made by deacetylation of chitin extracted from crustacean exoskeleton. Chitosan nanofibers are commonly fabricated by (B) electrospinning or (C) solution blow spinning, usually from chitosan dissolved in acetic acid. The principle of electrospinning is the induction of a liquid jet from a syringe nozzle using a high voltage, while solution blow spinning uses a high-pressure inert gas as a driving force. The solvent evaporates at the nozzle, and the polymer chains are stretched and travel the tip-to-collector distance, where the solidified nanofibers accumulate on the collectors.