Fabrication of silk fibroin film with properties of thermal insulation and temperature monitoring

Silk fibroin exhibits excellent mechanical properties, good biocompatibility, and biodegradability combined with benign processing conditions, attracting considerable research interest for the application as biomedical materials. Among the diverse forms of sponges, hydrogels, films, and mats manufactured from silk fibroin, films are especially appealing due to the high water and oxygen permeability, good cell attachment, and low immunogenicity. Fabrication of silk fibroin films with novel properties has been successfully developed simply by incorporating various functional components into it. In the present study, the properties of thermal insulation and temperature monitoring for the silk fibroin film are demonstrated for the first time through the incorporation of thermochromic microcapsules within it. Moreover, the silk fibroin film is also endowed with improved mechanical properties in terms of tension strength and elongation at break because of the reinforcing effect of thermochromic microcapsules. The silk fibroin film fabricated with novel features in this study can be a good candidate for the application of wound dressings, tissue engineering scaffolds, and bio-related devices in the future. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part B: Polym. Phys. 2016, 54, 1846–1852