Colorless Silk/Copper Sulfide Hybrid Fiber and Fabric with Spontaneous Heating Property under Sunlight

Abstract

With the increasing demand for comfort, thinness, and warmth of fabrics, various functional fibers have emerged. However, natural silkworm silk, as one of the most widely used natural fibers in textile, faces the issue that it cannot be modified during the spinning process like synthetic fibers. Herein, copper sulfide nanoparticles (CuS NPs) with a near-infrared (NIR) absorption property were first prepared by using regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) as the biological template. Then, trace CuS NPs prepared in RSF solution (no more than 100 ppm) were added into the RSF spinning dope to prepare colorless RSF/CuS hybrid fibers via wet-spinning process. The tensile test of the RSF/CuS hybrid fibers showed that the toughness was improved with the addition of CuS NPs, which completely met the requirements of textile development. The temperature of RSF/CuS hybrid fiber bundles could increase 18.5 °C within 3 min under 1064 nm laser irradiation with power density of 1.0 W/cm2. Finally, these RSF/CuS hybrid fiber bundles were woven into silk fabric or embroidered on a cotton fabric. Under the simulated sunlight, the temperature of RSF/CuS fabric could increase to more than 40 °C from room temperature. Also, as per the infrared images, the pattern of embroidery displayed a significant difference in temperature increase as compared to cotton matrix. Based on these results, an almost colorless RSF/CuS hybrid fiber that can be mass produced by wet spinning may have great potential in the fabrication of dyeable, light, and comfortable silk functional fabric with spontaneous heating characteristics under sunlight.

Robust Silk Protein Hydrogels Made by a Facile One-Step Method and Their Multiple Applications

“…The degumming process of B. mori silk cocoons was conducted following a well-established procedure that has been reported in our previous work . In brief, raw cocoons were twice treated in a boiling aqueous solution of 0.5 wt % NaHCO 3 for 30 min and then rinsed thoroughly with deionized water before being air-dried at 40 °C overnight.…”

“…The degumming process of B. mori silk cocoons was conducted following a well-established procedure that has been reported in our previous work. 50 In brief, raw cocoons were twice treated in a boiling aqueous solution of 0.5 wt % NaHCO 3 for 30 min and then rinsed thoroughly with deionized water before being air-dried at 40 °C overnight. The degummed silk fibers were dissolved in FA with CaCl 2 at room temperature for 3 h. After defoaming, a transparent homogeneous solution was poured into Teflon molds, which then immersed in deionized water to form RSF hydrogels.…”

Application of microencapsulation technology in silk fibers

“…Silk, also known as natural silk, is a continuous long fiber formed by the solidification of silk liquid secreted by mature silkworms during cocooning. The silk fiber (SF) is a protein fiber, containing 18 kinds of amino acids, which is similar to the structure of human skin, so it is commonly known as the “second skin” and the “fiber queen.” 1,2 Silk generally includes mulberry silk (silkworm silk), tussah silk, castor silk, and so forth. Each fiber of silk consists of a core fiber made up of two strands of silk fibroin fibers and an outer layer of sericin 3,4 which plays a bonding role.…”

Photothermal Regenerated Fibers with Enhanced Toughness: Silk Fibroin/MoS2 Nanoparticles

“…BSA-Au NCs showed no significant negative effect on silkworm when the dose of Au was below 9.38 µg/silkworm (about 6.25 mg/kg). In a previous study, functional nanoparticles were directly blended into the spinning solution and RSF fibers were prepared by wet spinning technology which can functionalize RSF fibers and maintain the high strength of RSF fibers as well [19][20][21][22][23][24]. For example, Pham et al [25] reported a novel approach to toughen epoxy resin with nano-silica fabricated from rice husk using a thermal treatment method with a particle size distribution in a range of 40-80 nm.…”