Abstract

With excellent biocompatibility and biodegradability, silk fibroin has been developed into many protein materials. For producing regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) fibers, the conformation transition of silk fibroin needs to be thoroughly studied during the spinning process. Since the many silk fabrics that are discarded comprise an increasing waste of resources and increase the pressure on the environment, in this paper, waste silk fiber was recycled in an attempt to prepare regenerated fibroin fiber by dry-wet spinning. Ethanol was the coagulation bath. The rheological properties of all the RSF solutions were investigated to acquire rheology curves and non-Newtonian indexes for spinnability analysis. Four stages of the spinning process were carried out to obtain RSF samples and study their conformation transitions, crystallization, and thermal properties by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction, and differential scanning calorimetry. Quantitative analysis of the FTIR results was performed to obtain specific data regarding the contents of the secondary structures. The results showed that higher concentration spinning solutions had better spinnability. As the spinning process progressed, random coils were gradually converted into β-sheets and crystallization increased. Among the different influencing factors, the ethanol coagulation bath played a leading role in the conformation transitions of silk fibroin.

Highlights

  • Bombyx mori silk is known as the "queen of fibers" because of its outstanding mechanical properties compared with most nature fibers

  • Silk fiber is a polymer composed of fibroin and glue-like sericin

  • The waste silk was degummed by boiling in 0.2 wt% Na2 CO3 aqueous solution for 25 min and was washed several times with deionized water

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Summary

Introduction

Bombyx mori silk is known as the "queen of fibers" because of its outstanding mechanical properties compared with most nature fibers. After extraction from degummed silk fibers, firoin protein can be developed into various morphologies, including gels, sponges, films [1], and fibers, and combined with diverse functional materials to produce extraordinary properties. Silk resources are very limited and precious due to their long production cycle and high cost. To solve this problem, many scholars have tried to extract silk fibroin to fabricate regenerated fibroin fibers. By simulating the spinning method of silkworms, people have expected to prepare superior regenerated silk fibroin fibers with an adjustable morphology and specific structure; further exploring the forming process and mechanisms of natural silk fibers could promote significant development in the field of silk fibroin materials.

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