Silkworm Biomaterials

Biomaterials are all around us in the form of wood, cellulose, starch, vegetable oil, and many many others. But how are these raw materials processed into more practical mediums for us to use in our daily lives (for example, how does cellulose turn into cardboard)? This collection explores the nature of bio-based materials and the production process using silk fibroin from silkworms as a case study. We will walk through the steps of silk fiber extraction, and then put our purified silk fibroin to the test with an at-home tensile test.