Engineering Natural Silk Applications and Future Directions

This book highlights the potential of silk in a vast array of applications, mainly in the field of medicine, electronics, and cosmetics. The silk proteins are generally contrived within the specialized glands of the arthropods, viz silkworms, spiders, and moths posterior to the biosynthesis occurring inside the epithelial cells. The unique conformational orientation comprising of hydrophobic crystalline beta-sheet domains and hydrophilic amorphous random coil structure, their tunability, presence of plenteous functional groups, mechanical strength, ease of regeneration, biocompatibility and biodegradability has enabled silk to grow beyond textile materials over last few decades making it an excellent alternative to synthetic polymers.

Silk: Sources & Structure.- Role of degumming and various degumming techniques.- Various morphological forms of silk fibroin.- Bio-composites of Silk.- Silk based bio-inks.- Additive manufacturing of silk.- Silk based smart materials.- Biomedical applications of Silk fibroin.- Silk for environment remediation.

Prof. Balasubramanian K is Professor, Dean (Academics), and Head in the Department of Metallurgical & Materials Engineering, DIAT (DU), Ministry of Defence, India, and has been highly acclaimed for his contribution in polymer processing and fabrication for various applications like biomedical & biodegradable materials, antibacterial & smart textiles, superhydrophobic coatings, ablative materials, waste-water treatment, and polymer nanocomposites. Prior to Ministry of Defence, Government of India, he was working as Research Manager (Technology), in UK, Materials Research Institute for a period of 10 years and had transferred about 8 technologies to MEs and SMEs after his Ph.D. in Polymer Technology from IPTME, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK.

Dr. Niranjana Jaya Prakash earned her Master’s degree in chemistry from National Institute of Technology Karnataka, India, in 2019, and has completed her Ph.D. in silk-based materials for biomedical applications from the Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering at DIAT (DU), Ministry of Defence, India, with Prof. Balasubramanian K. Her research interests focus on silk and silk-based bio composites, natural composites, biomedical engineering, polymer processing, and the design and fabrication of smart and functional systems.