Preparation and Characterization of a Water-fast, Soft and Elastic Keratin Membrane

摘要

Keratin molecules are easily degraded in wool dissolution which makes molecular-chain break and weight decrease so that the formed keratin membrane shows low tensile properties and bad formability for most existing dissolving methods. A new approach to prepare keratin solution from wool fibers with low damage on the peptide linkages, i.e. the molecular weight ranges from 13000～18000, and the preparation method to form the keratin film from the keratin solution, have been studied experimentally. The membranes were measured by means of spectroscopic analysis and tensile tests. The former results show that ⅰ) the keratin films are typical and transparent protein films but the transparency depends on the micro-pore size and keratin concentration; ⅱ) the films are anti-ultraviolet ones, especially between short and distant UV area; and ⅲ) there are β-pleated molecules in because FT-IR analysis illustrates the absorbed picks at acylamine Ⅰ and Ⅱ bands. The latter results obtained from the tensile tests indicate that this sort of keratin membranes has a relative high modulus, moderate strength, high elongation and low bending rigidity. As a materials used in biomedicine field, especially for the cultivation substrates, the keratin membrane is an extensive and applied prospect in biomembranes.