A simple process for dry spinning of regenerated silk fibroin aqueous solution

The conventional process for preparing dry spinnable regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) aqueous solution needs not only an addition of Ca2+but also an adjustment of pH value. In this work, an RSF dry spinning dope was prepared by using a simplified method with solely adding Ca2+. Compared with the conventional RSF solution, the simply prepared aqueous solution showed similar content of β-sheet conformation and diameter of RSF aggregates but lower viscosity. Furthermore, the posttreated RSF fiber dry-spun from this simply prepared solution showed higher crystallinity and crystalline orientation, smaller crystallite size, and better mechanical properties. It could be concluded that Ca2+played a much more important role than pH value in improving the structures and properties of RSF spinning solution and fibers. Therefore, the step of adjusting pH value could be excluded in the process of preparing high performance RSF fibers.