Applicability of forcibly spinning technology to produce a finer silk filament

Abstract

Forcibly spinning method has once shown a potential to enhance tensile strength of Bombyx mori silkworm silk fibers to the level of spider dragline silk. Thus, the tensile data for the forcibly spun silk fibers reported so far were compared with the tensile data for the industrially used hybridized F1 Bombyx mori silkworms. The forcibly spinning method may be convenient to produce a finer filament, but it was found to be difficult to produce a long and strong filament comparable to the commercial silk fibers. On the contrary, the breeding technology which can reduce the number of molts from four to three by feeding an imidazole compound appears to be the most practical strategy to obtain a finer and stronger silk filament with a length more than 500 m.

Keywords

• forcibly spinning
• three-molt silkworm
• bombyx mori silkworm
• textile property