Preparation of Transparent Water-Insoluble Silk Fibroin Films

Abstract

The transparent water-insoluble silk fibroin(SF) films were casted from the mixture solution of silk fibroin and xylitol/mannitol. The structure, surface morphology, solubility, mechanical properties and light transmittance of the blend films were measured. FT-IR, X-ray diffraction retuslts indicated that the films were mainly composed of Silk I structure. SEM showed the blend films with xylitol were miscible, whereas the blend films with mannitol had phase-separated structure. There were lots of nanopores in the blend films in the wet state. The insoluble SF /xylitol films had excellent mechanical properties while the SF / mannitol films were brittle. The mechanical property of SF/alcohol blend films were consistent with the human cornea in wet state.When the contents of xylitol were 10% and 20%, the blend films had high light transmittance which were similar to human cornea. In summary, the SF /xylitol film containing 10% xylitol provides a great potential to act as repairing materials for cornea.