• 文献标题:   Feeding Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes or Graphene to Silkworms for Reinforced Silk Fibers
  • 文献类型:   Article
  • 作  者:   WANG Q, WANG CY, ZHANG MC, JIAN MQ, ZHANG YY
  • 作者关键词:   silkworm silk, carbon nanotube, graphene, mechanical property, carbonization
  • 出版物名称:   NANO LETTERS
  • ISSN:   1530-6984 EI 1530-6992
  • 通讯作者地址:   Tsinghua Univ
  • 被引频次:   55
  • DOI:   10.1021/acs.nanolett.6b03597
  • 出版年:   2016

▎ 摘  要

Silkworm silk is gaining significant attention from both the textile industry and research society because of its outstanding mechanical properties and lustrous appearance. The possibility of creating tougher silks attracts particular research interest. Carbon nanotubes and graphene are widely studied for their use as reinforcement. In this work, we report mechanically enhanced silk directly collected by feeding Bombyx mori larval silkworms with single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) and graphene. We found that parts of the fed carbon nanomaterials were incorporated into the as-spun silk fibers, whereas the others went into the excrement of silkworms. Spectroscopy study indicated that nanocarbon additions hindered the conformation transition of silk fibroin from random coil and alpha-helix to beta-sheet, which may contribute to increased elongation at break and toughness modules. We further investigated the pyrolysis of modified silk, and a highly developed graphitic structure with obviously enhanced electrical conductivity was obtained through the introduction of SWNTs and graphene. The successful generation of these SWNT- or graphene-embedded silks by in vivo feeding is expected to open up possibilities for the large-scale production of high-strength silk fibers.