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Self‐Expansion Behavior of Silk Fibroin Film
Author(s) -
Kawahara Yutaka,
Furukawa Keiko,
Yamamoto Takeshi
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
macromolecular materials and engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.913
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1439-2054
pISSN - 1438-7492
DOI - 10.1002/mame.200500350
Subject(s) - fibroin , materials science , silk , amorphous solid , composite material , ductility (earth science) , casting , crystal (programming language) , crystallography , creep , chemistry , programming language , computer science
Summary: Silk fibroin cast film was prepared using a ternary solvent system of CaCl 2 /CH 3 CH 2 OH/H 2 O (1/2/8 in mole ratio). A drying temperature at casting influenced crystal structure of fibroin. When a drying temperature was set lower than 9 °C, the cast film became amorphous. When a drying temperature was set higher than 40 °C, a fibroin film of silk‐II structure was obtained. In order to produce a fibroin film of silk‐I structure, a preferable temperature range was from 20 to 26 °C. The crystal transformation from random coil structure into silk‐I could be made through exposure of an amorphous film to water vapor. As for the crystal transformation from silk‐I into silk‐II, the treatment with a glycerin solution was effective. In the course of the treatment a film showed self‐thinning and self‐expanding. The expansion ratio exceeded 40% at maximum. The film produced accompanying self‐expansion was ductile in nature.The apparent self‐expansion percentage as a function of initial thickness of the film. The ductility of the film was classified into four stages from the observation of recovery behavior after folding: •, very soft; ♦, soft; ▪, middle; ▴, hard (see Figure 5).