Abstract
Silk has been widely used not only in the textile field but also in non-textile applications, which is composed of inner fibrous protein, named fibroin, and outer global protein, named sericin. Due to big differences, such as appearance, solubility, amino acid composition and amount of reactive groups, silk fibroin and sericin usually need to be separated before further process. The residual sericin may influence the molecular weight, structure, morphology and properties of silk fibroin, so that degumming of silk is important and necessary, not only in textile field but also in non-textile applications. Traditional textile degumming processes, including soap, alkali or both, could bring such problems as environmental damage, heavy use of water and energy, and damage to silk fibroin. Therefore, this review aims to present a systematic work on environmentally friendly and green degumming processes of raw silk, including art of green degumming process, quantitative and qualitative evaluation, influence of degumming on molecular weight, structure, morphology and properties of silk. It is anticipated that rational selection and design of environmentally friendly and green degumming process is quite important and meaningful, not only for textile application but also for non-textile application.
Highlights
Silk, generally known as the “queen of fiber”, has been used in the textile field and in biomedical field [1,2,3]
The results indicated that the fibroin was not damaged, and the silk fabric was provided with good physical properties, such as tensile strength with bromelain degumming method, compared with traditional sodium carbonate degumming method
In order to determine whether the sericin has been completely removed from silk filaments, quantitative and qualitative evaluation will be used
Summary
Generally known as the “queen of fiber”, has been used in the textile field and in biomedical field [1,2,3]. Silk can be produced by the species from Arachnida or Lepidoptera, such as mites, butterflies and moths [4]. Among such kinds of silks, those from the domesticated silkworms (Bombyx mori) are used mostly. Silk in this paper points to the Bombyx mori silk. The silk is mainly composed of two kinds of proteins, the inner insoluble fibrous protein, which is usually named fibroin, and the outer global hydrophilic protein, named sericin [2,5]. Due to big differences, such as appearance, solubility, amino acid composition and amount of reactive groups, silk fibroin and sericin usually needs to be separated before further processing
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