**Yu Chen 1,2,3, Weipeng Lu 1,3,\*, Yanchuan Guo 1,2,3,\*, Yi Zhu <sup>3</sup> and Yeping Song <sup>3</sup>**


Received: 6 March 2019; Accepted: 25 March 2019; Published: 3 April 2019

**Abstract:** Traditional wound dressings require frequent replacement, are prone to bacterial growth and cause a lot of environmental pollution. Therefore, biodegradable and antibacterial dressings are eagerly desired. In this paper, gelatin/ZnO fibers were first prepared by side-by-side electrospinning for potential wound dressing materials. The morphology, composition, cytotoxicity and antibacterial activity were characterized by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffractometry (XRD), particle size analyzer (DLS), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), thermogravimetry (TGA) and Incucyte™ Zoom system. The results show that ZnO particles are uniformly dispersed on the surface of gelatin fibers and have no cytotoxicity. In addition, the gelatin/ZnO fibers exhibit excellent antibacterial activity against *Staphylococcus aureus* (*S. aureus*) and *Escherichia coli* (*E. coli*) with a significant reduction of bacteria to more than 90%. Therefore, such a biodegradable, nontoxic and antibacterial fiber has excellent application prospects in wound dressing.

**Keywords:** gelatin fibers; ZnO particles; antibacterial activity
