Dresden 2009 – scientific programme

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CPP: Fachverband Chemische Physik und Polymerphysik

CPP 16: POSTERS Polyelectrolytes and Biological Systems

CPP 16.13: Poster

Tuesday, March 24, 2009, 14:00–16:30, P3

Crystallization and melting of fibrous silk — •Andreas Wurm, Daniela Arbeiter, and Christoph Schick — University of Rostock, Institute of Physics, Polymerphysics, 18051 Rostock, Germany

The fundamental thermodynamic properties of materials based on fibrous proteins are important parameters, which are needed in order fully to understand the behavior of these materials in vitro and as structural elements in vivo.

Often these proteins exist in nature as semi-crystalline material. As for semi-crystalline polymers, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) would be the easiest tool for determination of thermal properties like heat capacity, temperatures of transitions, melting enthalpy, crystallinity etc.

For fibers from the bombyx mori silk worm it arises the difficulty, that thermal decomposition during a DSC scan with common heating rate of about 10 K/min starts about 30 K above glass transition temperature, already before melting. To overcome this problem we applied faster calorimetric methods, like HyperDSC and ultra fast chip calorimetry with heating rates up to 500 K/min and 1 MK/min, respectively. These methods are suitable to prevent thermal decomposition on heating into the melt because of the short exposition time at high temperatures. We will present results from several crystallization-melting experiments of silk, using these fast calorimetric methods.