For several years the team led by professor Zhang Yaopeng and Shao Huili from MaterialSchool has focused on the research on silkfibroin modification. Recently through feeding silkworms a diet containing TiO2, the team has successfully got natural silk whose strength and resistance to UV radiation were greatly improved. This method has the following advantages: low cost, easy to operate and environmentally-friendly. As a result, it would be of great significance to the industrialization of mass production of silk with high performance.
On September 21, the Chemical & Engineering News in America reported the project with the title of “Worms With TiO2 Diet Spin Superstrong Silk”. (39(37): 26News link: ))
Founded in 1923, the Chemical & Engineering News is a critical magazine in the world’s chemistry and chemical engineering field and mainly reports the latest achievements, hot spots and issues in the field.
According to the report, silk is a natural protein fiber prized for its strength and durability. But it’s not the best in the nature- spider silk is even stronger and able to stretch more before breaking, except it can’t easily be mass-produced. Therefore, the modification of silk becomes especially important. Through feeding silkworms a diet containing TiO2, the team led by professor Zhang Yaopeng from MaterialSchool has successfully reached the goal.
In early September, the project paper-Reinforced and Ultraviolet Resistant Silks from Silkworms Fed with Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles, was published online on the ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. The State Key Lab for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials and the Materials School of Donghua University were listed as the author’s unit. The ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. is an association journal of the American chemistry focusing on topics relating togreen chemistry and engineering. Its influence index in 2014 was 4.642, ranking 8/134 in Chemical engineering SCI journals.
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