Effect of Relative Humidity on the Electrospinning Performance of Regenerated Silk Solution.

Bo Kyung Park,In Chul Um

doi:10.3390/polym13152479

Abstract

Recently, the electrospun silk web has been intensively studied in terms of its biomedical applications, including tissue engineering scaffolds, due to its good biocompatibility, cytocompatibility, and biodegradability. In this study, the effect of relative humidity (RH) conditions on the morphology of electrospun silk fiber and the electrospinning production rate of silk solution was examined. In addition, the effect of RH on the molecular conformation of electrospun silk web was examined using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. As RH was increased, the maximum electrospinning rate of silk solution and fiber diameter of the resultant electrospun silk web were decreased. When RH was increased to 60%, some beads were observed, which showed that the electrospinnability of silk formic acid solution deteriorated with an increase in RH. The FTIR results showed that electrospun silk web was partially β-sheet crystallized and RH did not affect the molecular conformation of silk.

Highlights

It is reported that the electrospinning rate can be increased by controlling the degumming ratio at 19.5%
Regardless of the silk concentration, the maximum electrospinning rate of all silk solutions is decreased with an increase in relative humidity (RH)
When the maximum electrospinning rate is plotted against the viscosity of the dope solution, the effect of RH on the electrospinning rate was more clearly observed (Figure 2)

Summary

Introduction

Silk is a naturally occurring polymeric material that has long been used as the best textile material. The parameters influencing the electrospinning performance and the resultant fiber morphology of silk have been extensively studied. It has been reported that the productivity of electrospun fiber was increased [34,44], and that bead formation was decreased [35] or increased [33,39], with an increase in RH These studies show that the effect of RH on the electrospinning performance and electrospun-morphology of the resultant fiber is diverse and depends on the types of polymer and solvent used for electrospinning. The effect of RH on the electrospinning performance of silk formic acid solution was examined by measuring (1) the fiber morphology, including the fiber diameter,. The effect of RH on the molecular conformation and crystallinity of the resultant electrospun silk webs was examined

Preparation of Regenerated Silk

Electrospinning of Regenerated Silk Solution

Measurement and Characterization

Results and Discussion