The Structure And Properties Of Regenerated Silk Products By Electrospinning

Electrospinning is an attractive method of producing fibers from both natural and synthetic polymer with diameters ranging from scores of nanometers to several micrometers. Regenerated silk by electrospinning (ERS) is comparable to or smaller in diameter than those electrospun fibers from collagen, elatin and fibrinogen. With good biocompatibility and degradability, electrospun regenerated silk film (ERSF) is an ideal candidate for biomedical, electrical and textile applications, including tissue-engineered scaffolds, wound dressings and drug delivery systems.Regenerated Bombyx mori silk fibroin solution in formic acid was electrospun into nonwoven mat constructed by nanoscale fibers with the homemade electrospinning instrument. Based on the previous studies, the structure and properties of ERS and ERSF were investigated mainly on the following aspects.The first was the influences of voltage and C-SD on microstructure of ERS and mechanical properties of ERSF. The results showed that 9wt% was an ideal concentration of SF-formic acid solution with better spinnability at different voltage and C-SD. When C-SD was 10cm, the diameter of fiber, breaking strain, stress and special breaking energy of ERSF decreased with the increase of voltage. There were complex changes in molecular conformation and crystallinity of ERS during this process. When voltage was 12kv, at different C-SD, The content of random /α-helical conformation in ERS improved with the C-SD increasing, but the crystallinity increased only slightly then decreased sharply. Both the diameter of ERS and mechanical properties of ERSF disorderly varied.The second was the relationships between the structure and properties of ERSF. The distribution of pore diameter in the ERSF was measured with a mercury porosimeter. The effects of weight per square meter (area density) on air and water transport performances, wetting and mechanical properties of ERSF were investigated. Meanwhile, the orient characteristics of mechanical properties were discussed. The results showed that the average pore diameters of ERSF were about micro, and the ratio of surface area to...