Study on the temperature-induced sol–gel transition of cellulose/silk fibroin blends in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium chloride via rheological behavior

Proteins in Ionic Liquids: Reactions, Applications, and Futures

“…In 2004, Phillips et al (2004) published the first communication on the use of ionic liquids for silk dissolution, demonstrating [C 4 C 1 Im] and [C 2 C 1 Im]-based ionic liquids as effective solvents. Ionic liquids have since proven great utility in dissolving B. mori silk for a range of applications (Phillips et al, 2004, 2005; Gupta et al, 2007; Mantz et al, 2007; Goujon et al, 2012, 2013; Silva et al, 2012, 2013; Wang et al, 2012, 2013b; Zhou et al, 2013; Yao et al, 2014a,b, 2018; Li et al, 2015; Lozano-Pérez et al, 2015; Zhang et al, 2016a; Susanin et al, 2017, 2018; Stanton et al, 2018; Table 2). Successful dissolution has been achieved with a range of 1-methyl-3-alkylimidazolium ionic liquids, particularly when partnered with chloride or carboxylate anions.…”

“…The access to ionic liquid-soluble proteins, and other recalcitrant biomass, has naturally led to the production of composites in order to create materials with a great depth and breadth of physical and chemical properties (Mahmood et al, 2017). Popular have been combinations of protein and cellulosic derivatives (Xie et al, 2005; Hameed and Guo, 2009; Wu et al, 2009; Shang et al, 2011; Wang et al, 2013a, 2014; Yao et al, 2014a,b; Zhang et al, 2014; Kammiovirta et al, 2016; Tran and Mututuvari, 2016; Tran et al, 2016; Stanton et al, 2018), alongside other sugar polymers such as chitosan (Silva et al, 2012; Tran and Mututuvari, 2016), chitin (Park et al, 2006), and starch (Leroy et al, 2012). Both protein structuring and macrostructural morphology provide insight into the impact of ionic liquids in the formation of these materials.…”

Viscoelastic behavior and sol‐gel transition of cellulose/silk fibroin/1‐butyl‐3‐methylimidazolium chloride extended from dilute to concentrated solutions

“…But η ( ) is larger than | η *(ω)| at high frequency for the blend solutions in dilute regime, semidilute unentangled regime. In contrast, η ( ) is less than | η *(ω)| for concentrated cellulose/[BMIM]Cl or concentrated cellulose/silk fibroin/[BMIM]Cl solutions . It can be speculated that the deviations from cox‐merz rule of dilute and semidilute blend solution are caused by two phase structures of the polymer micro‐aggregates dispersed in the system.…”

“…The sol‐gel transition of cellulose/silk fibroin/[BMIM]Cl has been proved in our previous study . It is found that the gel structure is mainly formed by cellulose molecules and it can be loosened with the existence of silk fibroin.…”

“…In our previous research, [BMIM]Cl was used as co‐solvent for cellulose and silk fibroin, the effect of cellulose/silk fibroin blend ratio on the rheology properties of the blend solutions were studied, and a typical continuous–discrete type of phase morphology can be imaged while comparing the experimental values with the data calculated from log‐additivity rule . Furthermore, the temperature induced sol‐gel transition of the blend solution was proved , which is mainly caused by the intra‐ and intermolecular interaction between cellulose chains. Zhang et al used ionic liquid to co‐dissolve cellulose with collagen, which is another important protein material.…”