Investigations on rheological properties and gelation of tasar regenerated silk fibroin solution

Abstract

Tasar silk is a variety of non-mulberry silk indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. We present the measured frequencydependent viscoelastic moduli of Tasar regenerated silk fibroin (RSF) solution using optical tweezers at two concentrations (0.16% and 0.25% w/v) and extend these measurements to the low frequency regime using a video microscopy technique. We extend the investigation on the rheological behavior of Tasar RSF for four more RSF concentrations, viz., 0.50%, 1.00%, 2.50% and 5.00% using video microscopy. In all the RSF samples, both storage and loss moduli are found to increase with frequency. At lower frequencies the loss modulus is more than the storage modulus and exhibit similar behavior until a crossover frequency beyond which the storage modulus exceeds the loss modulus at all frequencies. The relaxation time which is inversely related to the crossover frequency is found to rise sharply at 5% w/v, indicating the onset of gelation in the sample. These results are examined in relation to the viscoelastic parameters of mulberry silk, wherein the larger crossover frequencies at the same higher concentrations indicate relaxation times that are an order of magnitude smaller than those measured for Tasar RSF.

Experimental and Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study on Sol–Gel Conversion Process of Aluminum Carboxylate System

“…The sol sample exhibited good elastic behavior, where tanδ < 1. When tanδ > 1, the increase in tanδ value corresponded to better fluidity [ 30 , 31 , 32 ]. As shown in Figure 6 b, this tanδ value was increased with the rise in temperature for all sol models, indicating that the fluidity of aluminum sol improved with the increase in temperature.…”

Viscoelastic Cell Microenvironment: Hydrogel‐Based Strategy for Recapitulating Dynamic ECM Mechanics

“…[ 149,150 ] Generally, this particle‐based microrheology includes passive and active microrheology techniques. During a passive microrheology testing, the movement of probe particles due to Brownian motion can be tracked in real‐time through dynamic light scattering [ 151–153 ] or digital video microscopy, [ 154–156 ] and probe particle motion is affected by the surrounding hydrogel materials. Thus, by measuring mean square displacement (MSD, Δ r 2 ) values of probe particle trajectory in the hydrogels, the local viscoelastic property can be accessed (Figure 3G).…”