Poly vinyl alcohol is a hydrophilic, biocompatible and biodegradable polymer which has found application in biodrugs and tissue engineering. Up to present time, polyvinyl alcohol has been electrospun from aqueous solution. Sericin accompanying Silk is a waste which is produced in scouring silk and has interesting properties which has attracted the attention of researchers. Sericin is hydrophilic, biodegradable, biocompatible, cheap and enjoys anti-cancer properties. Mixture of poly vinyl alcohol and sericin in the form of 2D membrane or 3D hydro gels has been employed in healing skin damages and has proved to be successful. Adding sericin to polyvinyl alcohol has improved the adhesion, proliferation and growth of cells on poly vinyl alcohol tissue engineering scaffolds. In this research, polyvinyl alcohol 100% was electro spun from an organic solvent solution of PVA in DMSO (dimethyl sulfoxide). Up to now, only aqueous solution of PVA has been electrospun. More over, the mixture of PVA-Sericin was also electro spun in a common organic solvent namely DMSO. The electrospinning solution contained ratio of 0:100, 10:90, 15:85, 20:80 and 25:75 sericin(%w/w)-PVA(%w/w). Addition of urea to the solution made electrospinning of PVA- Sericin easier. The electro spun PVA-Sericin nano fibers had diameter in the range of 179-285nm. The effect of electrospinning parameters like voltage, feed rate and nozzle-collector distance was investigated on the diameter of electrospun nano fibers. XRD and DSC investigations showed that no reaction occurs between PVA and sericin as a result of mixing them. Keywords : poly (vinyl alcohol), sericin, electrosinning, nano fibers, tissue engineering.
