We have shown that protic ionic liquids, pILs, are effective coagulation solvents for the regenerated of silk fibroin, RSF. We show that the choice of pIL has a dramatic effect on the composition of the RSF. Additionally the use of pILs as the coagulator eliminates the need for volatile organic solvents in silk processing.

In nature, silk fibroin proteins assemble into hierarchical structures with dramatic mechanical properties. With the hope of creating new classes of on demand silk-based biomaterials, Bombyx mori silk is reconstituted back into stable aqueous solutions that can be reassembled into functionalized materials; one strategy for reassembly is electrogelation. Electrogels (e-gels) are particularly ver...

Orb-weaving spiders produce webs using two types of silk that have radically different mechanical properties. The dragline silk used to construct the supporting frame and radii of the web is stiff and as strong as steel, while the capture spiral is much weaker but more than ten times as extensible. This remarkable divergence in mechanical properties has been attributed to the aqueous glue that ...

Hydrogels are an attractive class of tunable material platforms that, combined with their structural and functional likeness to biological environments, have a diversity of applications in bioengineering. Several polymers, natural and synthetic, can be used, the material selection being based on the required functional characteristics of the prepared hydrogels. Silk fibroin (SF) is an attractiv...

Spider capture silk is a natural material that outperforms almost any synthetic material in its combination of strength and elasticity. The structure of this remarkable material is still largely unknown, because spider-silk proteins have not been crystallized. Capture silk is the sticky spiral in the webs of orb-weaving spiders. Here we are investigating specifically the capture spiral threads ...

We investigate the linear and nonlinear viscoelastic properties as well as the reversibility of strain-stiffening behavior of silk fibroin gels. The gels are prepared from 4.2w/v% fibroin solution in the presence of butanediol diglycidyl ether and N,N,N',N'-tetramethylethylenediamine (TEMED) as a cross-linker and catalyst, respectively. By changing the concentration of TEMED in the gelation sys...

The performance of organic solar cell is greatly determined by the nanoscale heterojunction morphology, and finding a practical method to achieve advantageous nanostructure remains a challenge. We demonstrate here that ordered bulk heterojunction (OBHJ) solar cell can be fabricated assisted by a simple, cost-effective nanoimprinting lithography method using patterned silk fibroin film mold at r...