Insights into the production and characterization of electrospun fibers from regenerated silk fibroin

• Simple and reproducible tensile tests were performed on aligned electrospun fibers.
• Information about the mechanical performance is obtained at the fiber level.
• Thinner fibers with increased extensibility were obtained by using our binary solvent.
• A fast conformational transition of fibroin molecules occurred during post-treatment.

Regenerated silk fibroin solutions from Bombyx mori were tested for electrospinning. Simple and reproducible tensile tests were performed on threads of aligned fibers to obtain information about their mechanical performance at the fiber level. The binary solvent formic acid/chloroform (10:1, v/v) rendered unbeaded thinner fibers with increased extensibility before failure when compared with pure formic acid. A remarkable improvement in strength was induced by immersing length-restricted fibers into ethanol for 5 min. Conformational changes of the protein chains were studied by solid-state NMR.

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