Dunderdale, G.J., Davidson, S.J., Ryan, A.J. orcid.org/0000-0001-7737-0526 et al. (1 more author) (2020) Flow-induced crystallisation of polymers from aqueous solution. Nature Communications, 11 (1). 3372. ISSN 2041-1723
Abstract
Synthetic polymers are thoroughly embedded in the modern society and their consumption grows annually. Efficient routes to their production and processing have never been more important. In this respect, silk protein fibrillation is superior to conventional polymer processing, not only by achieving outstanding physical properties of materials, such as high tensile strength and toughness, but also improved process energy efficiency. Natural silk solidifies in response to flow of the liquid using conformation-dependent intermolecular interactions to desolvate (denature) protein chains. This mechanism is reproduced here by an aqueous poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) solution, which solidifies at ambient conditions when subjected to flow. The transition requires that an energy threshold is exceeded by the flow conditions, which disrupts a protective hydration shell around polymer molecules, releasing them from a metastable state into the thermodynamically favoured crystalline state. This mechanism requires vastly lower energy inputs and demonstrates an alternative route for polymer processing.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. Open Access: This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Engineering (Sheffield) > Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering (Sheffield) The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Chemistry (Sheffield) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ENGINEERING AND PHYSICAL SCIENCE RESEARCH COUNCIL EP/M028437/1 EUROPEAN COMMISSION - HORIZON 2020 713475 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 13 Jul 2020 12:11 |
Last Modified: | 13 Jul 2020 12:11 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1038/s41467-020-17167-8 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:163182 |