Silk-silk blend materials

Abstract

Silk fibroin materials can be used as various kinds of biomedical materials. Here, we report a comparative study of silk-silk blend materials using thermal analysis and infrared spectroscopy. Four groups of silk-silk blend films were fabricated from aqueous solutions by blending Chinese Bombyx mori (Mori) with Indian Antheraea mylitta (Tussah) silk fibroin (Mori-Tussah), Mori with Antheraea assama (Muga) silk fibroin (Mori-Muga), Mori with Philosamia ricini (Eri) silk fibroin (Mori-Eri), and Mori with Thailand mulberry (Thai) silk fibroin (Mori-Thai), respectively. These silk-silk blend systems exploit the beneficial material properties of both silks. Glass transition temperatures (T g), heat capacity increments at T g, and degradation temperatures (T d) of these water-based silk-silk blend films were measured by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and temperature-modulated DSC (TMDSC). It was found that those silk-silk film systems were well-blended without macrophase separation. And glass transition temperatures and degradation temperatures of those silk-silk blend films can be controlled by changing the mass ratio of different silks in the blend system. Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (FTIR) was used to characterize secondary structures of silk-silk blends. The contents of alpha-helix and random coils are tunable through changing the contents of Tussah, Muga, Eri, or Thai silk in the blend system. The study demonstrates that Mori silk are fully miscible with Tussah, Muga, Eri, and Thai silk at different mass ratios, and the features of Mori silk combined with the attributes of Tussah, Muga, Eri, and Thai silk offer a useful suite of materials for a variety of applications in the future.