Additively manufactured leather-like silk protein materials

Abstract

Biomaterial composites based on reformulated silk protein offer new routes for tough and strong, environmentally friendly leather-like materials. We present here silk-based biomaterial formulations that are scalable, amenable to digital manufacturing, thus enabling a wide variety of formats, and offering new pathways to sustainable production. Performance is tuned by controlling silk protein conformations at the molecular scale, by introducing other biomaterials and natural additives, and by computerized fabrication providing programmable layering and non-regular geometrical patterning. The resulting materials display strong, soft, pliable, durable, and biodegradable features. Further, these leather-like blends can be augmented by embedding and stabilizing active molecules for sensing of the environment surrounding them.

Keywords

• Silk fibroin
• Alternative leather
• Additive manufacturing
• Biomaterials