Open Access

ARTICLE

Rheological Study on Blend Solutions of Non-mulberry Silk Fibroin and Gelatin Biopolymers

PRITI^1,*, RADHA SACHAN², ROLI PURWAR³

1 Discipline of Paint Technology, Department of Paint Technology, Mahamaya Polytechnic of Information Technology, Chail Kaushambi, Uttar Pradesh, India.
2 Department of Paint Technology, School of Chemical Technology, Harcourt Butler Technical University, Kanpur, India.
3 Discipline of Polymer Science and Chemical Technology, Department of Applied Chemistry, Delhi Technological University, Shahbad Daulatpur, Delhi, India.

* Corresponding Author:

Journal of Polymer Materials 2023, 40(3-4), 205-214. https://doi.org/10.32381/JPM.2023.40.3-4.6

Abstract

In current research work, we have studied the blending effect of non-mulberry silk fibroin (10% weight/volume basis) and gelatin (20% weight/volume basis) in formic acid. Several blends as SF10G0, SF2G8, SF3G7, SF5G5 and SF0G10 have been made and their rheological behaviour was investigated. The blend solutions were subjected to a steady shear rheological study in the variety of range of shear rates, namely 0.01–500 sec-1 and the viscosities of blend solutions were noticed to decrease in comparison to pure silk solution. The frequency sweep was employed in dynamic rheological tests to determine complex viscosity of these solutions from range of angular sweep 0.1–100 rad/sec. The consistent shear-thinning behaviour was noted for all the blends. The difference in numerical values of shear and complex viscosities indicated disobedience of Cox-Merz rule. Such analysis can be utilised for tailoring the properties of solution prior to processing them to create a versatile range of materials.

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