Studies On Degumming and Microwave Assisted Formulations of Silk Fibroin Nanocomposites

It is well known that traditionally, silk fibroin has been used for wearable products for a pretty long time. Many more farmers are involved in sericulture industries, and it is the backbone of the silk industry in the country. In recent years, there is considerable amount of interest in innovative research on value-added products of silk fibroin bio nanocomposites. However, formulations of silk fibroin bio nanocomposites are complicated and time-consuming process. It takes more than 52 hours and may not be suitable for production of value-added products for the sericulture farmers. There is a need for research in the field of low degradation degumming, dissolving, and reproducible desalting methodology, which would allow the isolation of native-like silk fibroin and might be employed for the ultimate industrial manufacture of regenerated silk fibroin. The purpose of this paper is to report the Studies On Microwave Assisted Formulations of Silk Fibroin Nanocomposites.The first goal is to create a softer degumming approach that would allow us to begin the dissolution process with low to non-degraded silk fibroin material. This method is based on Chung et al observation’s that the anionic detergent sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) improves degumming and the notion that shortening cooking time by employing microwave radiation minimizes degradation of the silk during the degumming process. Another goal of this effort is to reduce the time and temperature required for the complete dissolution of degummed silk fibroin, with the goal to destroy the silk fibroin as little as possible. The method developed is based on the results in the field of silk fibre quality control. So, this work looks into a new way to separate non-degraded regenerated silk fibroin, which requires the processing time of 52 hours with standard methods brings down to only 4 hours with the new method. When repeated short-term microwave treatments are used instead of the standard degumming protocol, degummed silk fibroin that didn’t break down was made. Afterwards a ZnCl2 solution was used to completely dissolve the degummed fibroin in just 1 hour at a temperature of 45 °C. Gel filtration was used to get rid of the salt. Based on these changes, a cytocompatibility aqueous silk fibroin solution could be made from degummed silk in only 4 hours, cutting the total process time by 48 hours without affecting the quality of the isolated silk fibroin solution.

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