Interfacial bonding and degumming effects on silk fibre/polymer biocomposites

Silk fibre has been popularly used for bio-medical engineering and surgically-operational applications for centuries because of its biocompatible and bioresorbable properties. Using silk fibre as reinforcement for bio-polymers could enhance the stiffness of scaffoldings and bone implants. However, raw silk fibre consists of silk fibroin that is bound together by a hydrophilic glued-liked protein layer called sericin. Degumming is a surface modification process for sericin removal which allows a wide control of the silk fibre's properties, making the silk fibre possible to be properly used for the development and production of novel bio-composites with specific mechanical and biodegradable properties. Some critical issues such as wettability, bonding efficiency and biodegradability at the fibre/matrix interface are of interesting topics in the study of the degumming process. Therefore, it is a need to detailedly study the effect on different degumming processes to the properties of the silk fibre for real-life applications. Crown Copyright (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.