This work presents an alternative approach for fabricating electrospun submicron highly hydrophilic fiber mats loaded with silver nanoparticles. These fiber mats show a high efficient antibacterial behavior, very attractive for applications like wound healing and skin regeneration processes. The fabrication method is divided in two steps. First, poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and beta-cyclodextrin (beta-CD) submicron fibers were electrospun and further stabilized using a thermal treatment, yielding stable hydrogel-like fibers with diameters ranging from 100 nm up to several microns. In the second step, silver ions were loaded into the fibers and then reduced to silver nanoparticles in-situ. The electrospinning parameters were adjusted to achieve the desired properties of the fiber mat (density, size) and afterwards, the characteristics of the silver nanoparticles (amount, size, aggregation) were tuned by controlling the silver ion loading mechanism. Highly biocide surfaces were achieved showing more than 99.99% of killing efficiency. The two-step process improves the reproducibility and tunability of the fiber mats. To our knowledge, this is the first time that stable hydrogel fibers with a highly biocide behavior have been fabricated using electrospinning. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2012