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Vol. 11 (2019)

Super-strong and Intrinsically Fluorescent Silkworm Silk from Carbon Nanodots Feeding

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-019-0303-z
Suna Fan
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Xiaoting Zheng
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Qi Zhan
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Huihui Zhang
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Huili Shao
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Jiexin Wang
State Key Laboratory of Organic‑Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People’s Republic of China
Chengbo Cao
School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, People’s Republic of China
Meifang Zhu
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China
Dan Wang
State Key Laboratory of Organic‑Inorganic Composites, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, People’s Republic of China
Yaopeng Zhang
State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, Shanghai Belt and Road Joint Laboratory of Advanced Fiber and Low‑Dimension Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, People’s Republic of China

Corresponding Author: Yaopeng Zhang

zyp@dhu.edu.cn

Nano-Micro Letters, Vol. 11 (2019), Article Number: 75

Abstract

Fluorescent silk is fundamentally important for the development of future tissue engineering scaffolds. Despite great progress in the preparation of a variety of colored silks, fluorescent silk with enhanced mechanical properties has yet to be explored. In this study, we report on the fabrication of intrinsically super-strong fluorescent silk by feeding Bombyx mori silkworm carbon nanodots (CNDs). The CNDs were incorporated into silk fibroin, hindering the conformation transformation, confining crystallization, and inducing orientation of mesophase. The resultant silk exhibited super-strong mechanical properties with breaking strength of 521.9 ± 82.7 MPa and breaking elongation of 19.2 ± 4.3%, improvements of 55.1% and 53.6%, respectively, in comparison with regular silk. The CNDs-reinforced silk displayed intrinsic blue fluorescence when exposed to 405 nm laser and exhibited no cytotoxic effect on cells, suggesting that multi-functional silks would be potentially useful in bioimaging and other applications.


Highlights:


1 Intrinsically, super-strong fluorescent silk was fabricated via feeding Bombyx mori silkworms with carbon nanodots.
2 The multi-functional silks showed no cytotoxicity to Schwann cells and exhibited great potential in bioimaging.
3 The reinforcing mechanism of multi-functional silks was proposed.

Keywords

Silkworm silk Carbon nanodot Mechanical property Fluorescent silk Feeding method
Fan, Suna, Xiaoting Zheng, Qi Zhan, Huihui Zhang, Huili Shao, Jiexin Wang, Chengbo Cao, Meifang Zhu, Dan Wang, and Yaopeng Zhang. 2019. “Super-Strong and Intrinsically Fluorescent Silkworm Silk from Carbon Nanodots Feeding”. Nano-Micro Letters 11 (September):75. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40820-019-0303-z.
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