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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 16: POSTERS Polyelectrolytes and Biological Systems

CPP 16.11: Poster

Dienstag, 24. März 2009, 14:00–16:30, P3

Silk - as seen by X-ray microdiffraction and small angle X-ray scattering with in situ tensile tests — •Igor Krasnov¹, Imke Diddens², Christina Krywka¹, Florian Kunze¹, and Martin Müller³ — ¹Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Leibnizstraße 19, D-24098 Kiel — ²University of Oxford, Dept. of Zoology, South Parks Road, OX1 3PS United Kingdom — ³GKSS Forschungszentrum Geesthacht, Max-Planck-Straße 1, D-21502 Geesthacht

Silkworm silk is a natural composite material produced by the silkworm bombyx mori and is known to have a high tensile strength comparable to that of steel. Unlike steel however, it is extremely stretchable with an extreme elongation before breaking and a high degree of toughness. It would be highly desirable to mimic nature’s spinning process to produce artificial fibres with optimized mechanical performance either from silkworm or recombinant spider silk spinning dope. Using a combination of in situ tensile tests and X-ray microdiffraction [1] as well as small angle X-ray scattering, we have determined the mechanical properties of both the crystalline and the disordered phase of the biological nanocomposite silk by adapting a model from linear viscoelastic theory to the semicrystalline morphology of silk. We have observed a strong interplay between the morphology of silk and the fibers’ mechanical properties. It is apparent, that the high extensibility of silk results mainly from the disordered phase, however, we have observed that the crystals are also elastically deformed.

[1] I. Krasnov et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 048104 (2008)