Optical fluorescent spider silk electrospun nanofibers with embedded cerium oxide nanoparticles

Ishac Kandas; Nader Shehata; Ibrahim Hassounah; Patrik Sobolciak; Igor Krupa Sr.; Randolph Lewis

doi:10.1117/1.JNP.12.026016

13 June 2018 Optical fluorescent spider silk electrospun nanofibers with embedded cerium oxide nanoparticles

Ishac Kandas, Nader Shehata, Ibrahim Hassounah, Patrik Sobolciak, Igor Krupa Sr., Randolph Lewis

Author Affiliations +

Journal of Nanophotonics, Vol. 12, Issue 2, 026016 (June 2018). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JNP.12.026016

Abstract

The work demonstrates an electrospun nanocomposite of recombinant spider silk protein (rSSp) nanofibers with embedded cerium oxide (ceria) nanoparticles. RSSP (MaSp1) has been produced, extracted from goat milk, and fabricated into nanofibers using an electrospinning process. The resulting electrospun nanofibers have a mean diameter of ∼50 nm. Furthermore, ceria nanoparticles of mean diameter <10 nm were added in the spinning dope to be embedded within the generated nanofibers. These nanoparticles show certain optical activity due to optical trivaliant cerium ions, associated with formed oxygen vacancies. The formed nanocomposite shows promising mechanical properties such as the Young’s modulus, elasticity (or elongation at break), and toughness. In addition, the electrospun mat becomes fluorescent with 520-nm emission upon exposure to UV light, due to excitation of the optically active ceria nanoparticles. Also, the formed nanocomposite shows a decay of its electric resistance over time upon exposure to cyclic loads at different humidity conditions. The synthesized nanocomposite can be utilized in different biomedical, textile, and sensing applications.

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Ishac Kandas, Nader Shehata, Ibrahim Hassounah, Patrik Sobolciak, Igor Krupa Sr., and Randolph Lewis "Optical fluorescent spider silk electrospun nanofibers with embedded cerium oxide nanoparticles," Journal of Nanophotonics 12(2), 026016 (13 June 2018). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JNP.12.026016

Received: 22 January 2018; Accepted: 31 May 2018; Published: 13 June 2018

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