Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers

In this study, we fed the larval of Bombyx mori silkworms with nanodroplets of liquid metal (LM) coated with microgels of marine polysaccharides to obtain stretchable silk. Alginate-coated liquid metal nanodroplets (LM@NaAlg) were prepared with significant chemical stability and biocompatibility. Th...

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Autores principales: Gao, Zhong-Feng, Zheng, Lin-Lin, Fu, Wen-Long, Zhang, Lei, Li, Jin-Ze, Chen, Pu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35407295
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12071177
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author Gao, Zhong-Feng
Zheng, Lin-Lin
Fu, Wen-Long
Zhang, Lei
Li, Jin-Ze
Chen, Pu
author_facet Gao, Zhong-Feng
Zheng, Lin-Lin
Fu, Wen-Long
Zhang, Lei
Li, Jin-Ze
Chen, Pu
author_sort Gao, Zhong-Feng
collection PubMed
description In this study, we fed the larval of Bombyx mori silkworms with nanodroplets of liquid metal (LM) coated with microgels of marine polysaccharides to obtain stretchable silk. Alginate-coated liquid metal nanodroplets (LM@NaAlg) were prepared with significant chemical stability and biocompatibility. This study demonstrates how the fed LM@NaAlg acts on the as-spun silk fiber. We also conducted a series of characterizations and steered molecular dynamics simulations, which showed that the LM@NaAlg additions impede the conformation transition of silk fibroins from the random coil and α-helix to the β-sheet by the formation of hydrogen bonds between LM@NaAlg and the silk fibroins, thus enhancing the elongation at the breakpoints in addition to the tensile properties. The intrinsically highly stretchable silk showed outstanding mechanical properties compared with regular silk due to its 814 MPa breaking strength and a breaking elongation of up to 70%—the highest reported performance so far. We expect that the proposed method can expand the fabrication of multi-functional silks.
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spelling pubmed-90008982022-04-12 Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers Gao, Zhong-Feng Zheng, Lin-Lin Fu, Wen-Long Zhang, Lei Li, Jin-Ze Chen, Pu Nanomaterials (Basel) Article In this study, we fed the larval of Bombyx mori silkworms with nanodroplets of liquid metal (LM) coated with microgels of marine polysaccharides to obtain stretchable silk. Alginate-coated liquid metal nanodroplets (LM@NaAlg) were prepared with significant chemical stability and biocompatibility. This study demonstrates how the fed LM@NaAlg acts on the as-spun silk fiber. We also conducted a series of characterizations and steered molecular dynamics simulations, which showed that the LM@NaAlg additions impede the conformation transition of silk fibroins from the random coil and α-helix to the β-sheet by the formation of hydrogen bonds between LM@NaAlg and the silk fibroins, thus enhancing the elongation at the breakpoints in addition to the tensile properties. The intrinsically highly stretchable silk showed outstanding mechanical properties compared with regular silk due to its 814 MPa breaking strength and a breaking elongation of up to 70%—the highest reported performance so far. We expect that the proposed method can expand the fabrication of multi-functional silks. MDPI 2022-04-01 /pmc/articles/PMC9000898/ /pubmed/35407295 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12071177 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Gao, Zhong-Feng
Zheng, Lin-Lin
Fu, Wen-Long
Zhang, Lei
Li, Jin-Ze
Chen, Pu
Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title_full Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title_fullStr Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title_full_unstemmed Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title_short Feeding Alginate-Coated Liquid Metal Nanodroplets to Silkworms for Highly Stretchable Silk Fibers
title_sort feeding alginate-coated liquid metal nanodroplets to silkworms for highly stretchable silk fibers
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9000898/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35407295
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/nano12071177
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