Recreating Silk's Fibrillar Nanostructure by Spinning Solubilized, Undegummed Silk.

The remarkable toughness (>70 MJ m) of silkworm silk is largely attributed to its hierarchically arranged nanofibrillar nanostructure. Recreating such tough fibers through artificial spinning is often challenging, in part because degummed, dissolved silk is drastically different to the unspun native feedstock found in the spinning gland. The present work demonstrates a method to dissolve silk without degumming to produce a solution containing undegraded fibroin and sericin.