Abstract
Feeding Bombyx mori larvae with chemically-modified diets affects the structure and properties of the resulted silk. Herein, we provide a road map for the use of silkworms as a factory to produce semiconducting/metallic natural silk that can be used in many technological applications such as supercapacitor electrodes. The silkworms were fed with four different types of chemicals; carbon material (graphite), sulfide (MoS2), oxide (TiO2 nanotubes), and a mixture of reactive chemicals (KMnO4/MnCl2). All the fed materials were successfully integrated into the resulted silk. The capacitive performance of the resulted silk was evaluated as self-standing fabric electrodes as well as on glassy carbon substrates. The self-standing silk and the silk@glassy carbon substrate showed a great enhancement in the capacitive performance over that of the unmodified counterparts. The specific capacitance of the self-standing blank silk negative and positive electrodes was enhanced 4 and 5 folds at 10 mV/s, respectively upon the modification with KMnO4/MnCl2 compared to that of the plain silk electrodes.
Highlights
Metals and semiconductors are the backbone of our modern industry
It was observed that the larvae fed with MoS2 were eating more than usual while the ones fed with KMnO4/MnCl2 were eating in a lower rate than usual
We demonstrate the ability to fabricate functionalized natural silk fibers by feeding the silkworms with the material of interest
Summary
Metals and semiconductors are the backbone of our modern industry. there is a continuous need to develop new methods and technologies to produce such essential materials with the desired characteristics at low cost. NS consists mainly of a polymerized protein known as fibroin covered with a glue-like material named sericin[6] It is fabricated through the organisms of silkworms from a liquid combination of polymers at room temperature, resulting in a silk that is insoluble in water[3,7]. Feeding Bombyx mori larvae with nanostructured materials such as CNTs7,8, graphene[7], TiO29,11 and other metal oxides[6] have been investigated in recent reports. The feeding process proved that Bombyx mori larvae can intake nanostructured materials, which affect the crystallinity of the resulting silk. We demonstrate the ability to modify the structure and supercapacitive behavior of NS by feeding the Bombyx mori larvae with four different types of materials (graphite, TiO2 nanotubes, MoS2, and KMnO4/MnCl2) for use as supercapacitor electrodes. The study shows that modification of the NS enhanced its capacitive behavior, paving the way for their use in flexible supercapacitor applications
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