Electrospinning of Silk Fibroin Fibres

Abstract

Electrospun silk fibroin fibres have potentials in biomedical applications. However, the insolubility of silk fibroin, the instability of silk fibroin solutions and the non-electrospinnability of aqueous silk fibroin solutions limit their application. This research developed a controllable approach combining solution preparation and material fabrication control for the electrospinning of silk fibroin. Optimized preparation parameters were investigated and stable aqueous silk fibroin solutions were successfully produced. A 60-minute degumming time was found to be the optimum boiling time to remove all sericin. Further to this, a simple and effective method was for the first time introduced to control the pH condition of the silk fibroin solution. When the pH was controlled at 10.5, silk fibroin solution was found to be the most stable and can be stored for enough time to meet most research requirements. The incorporation of PEO (Polyethylene oxide) was found to make aqueous silk fibroin solutions more suitable for electrospinning. Solution properties such as the overall viscosity (influenced by the silk fibroin concentration and the PEO blending proportion) and pH were shown to directly influence the electrospinning process and the morphology of electrospun fibres. The effects of electrospinning process parameters on the electrospun fibre morphologies were investigated. The most stable electrospinning process was achieved when the applied voltage was 12 kV, resulted in the most uniform fibres. The relationship of the applied voltage and beads defects was found to be related to the voltage dependence of the droplet formation during the electrospinning process.

Date of Award	2 Jul 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Hugh Gong (Main Supervisor) & Muriel Rigout (Co Supervisor)