Mechanical and degradation characteristics of natural silk fiber reinforced gelatin composites

Silk reinforced gelatin based composites were prepared by compression molding. The fiber content in the composite was 20 wt.%. Tensile strength (TS), tensile modulus (TM), bending strength (BS), bending modulus (BM), impact strength (IS) and hardness of the composites were found 44.5 MPa, 0.65 GPa, 63 MPa, 3.7 GPa, 5.1 kJ/m2 and 96 shore A respectively. The environmental effect on composite was observed by simulating weathering test and the composite lost 15.2% TS at the end of 30 h of the weathering testing period. The biodegradation test shows that the composite degrades very quickly and losses 52.1% weight at the end of 24 h. Morphological analysis was carried out to observe fracture behaviour and fiber pullout of the samples.