SPICE: Silk Processing In Controlled Environments

这笔奖学金将用于组建一个新的英国物理和生命科学家团队，目的是将自然过程转化为工程应用。我们的目标是发现可持续处理天然材料的新方法，从而减少油基聚合物的环境足迹。大多数天然材料都是人工种植的。丝绸，顾名思义，是纺成的。我自己的工作表明，在许多方面，丝绸纺丝与工业聚合物挤出有更多的共同点；但是有一个关键的区别，那就是对环境的影响。丝绸是一种高性能、可生物降解的生物聚合物，在室温下纺丝，唯一的废物是水。我们最近也证明了这个过程的能量消耗比典型聚合物少一千倍。这种独特的灵感来源现在比以往任何时候都更有价值，因为全球工业面临着来自消费者和政府越来越大的压力，要求找到生产高质量且完全可持续材料的新方法。本提案的总体目标是开发一种方法来控制生物聚合物的加工过程，使其具有可预测的性质。为了实现这一目标，我和我的团队将使用我已经组装好的最先进的表征实验室。这使我们能够在加工之前，过程中和之后研究我们的测试材料。首先，我们将根据天然丝腺的形状和加工条件设计一系列仿生纺丝装置。该装置将通过纺丝少量的天然丝原料来验证，目的是生产与自然纺丝没有区别的纤维。其次，我们将使用人工生产的丝原料，这种原料可以大量获得，以纺成具有可预测性能的纤维，并且数量适合研究新的工业应用。第三，利用我们对如何最好地处理丝绸原料的知识，我们将研究这些材料的非纤维加工，即叶片涂层来制作薄膜和3D打印来制作复杂的结构。最后，该团队将对一系列人工生物聚合物原料进行加工技术，并评估其可持续性和性能方面的潜力。该项目的产出将包括技术成果和科学见解。从技术上讲，仿生纺纱机的开发将是同类产品中的第一个，应该具有很高的价值和知名度。我们将发现人工原料是否可以加工成具有与其天然原料相等（如果不是更好）性能的材料。将我们的纺丝平台扩展到其他加工技术将回答一个极具争议的问题：“丝绸是一种好材料，还是仅仅是一种好纤维？”研究从食品到医疗保健的其他生物材料，将揭示是否有可能旋转一种优化生长的生物聚合物。工业界将参与整个项目，以确定我们可以从一个拥有4亿年研究和发展历史的系统中学习。我和我的团队将共同努力，为如何可持续地处理天然材料以及将这门科学推向21世纪的工具提供前所未有的理解。

This fellowship will be used to assemble a new UK team of physical and life scientists with the aim of turning natural processes into engineering applications. Our goal is to discover new ways of sustainably processing naturally sourced materials which will in turn reduce the environmental footprint of oil-based polymers.The majority of natural materials are grown. Silks, by definition, are spun. My own work has shown that in many ways silk spinning has more in common with industrial polymer extrusion; however there is one key difference, environmental impact. Silk is a high performance, biodegradable biopolymer spun at room temperature, with the only waste product being water. We have also recently demonstrated this process occurs at an energy cost around a thousand times less than a typical polymer. Such a unique source of inspiration is now more valuable than ever, as global industry faces increasing pressure from consumers and governments to find new ways of producing high quality yet fully sustainable materials. The overall objective of this proposal is to develop the means to control the processing of biopolymers into structures with predictable properties. To achieve this, my team and I will use the state-of-the-art characterisation lab I have already assembled. This permits us to study our test materials before, during and after processing. First we will design a series of biomimetic spinning devices based on the shape and processing conditions of a natural silk gland. This device will be validated by spinning small amounts of native silk feedstocks with the aim of producing fibres indistinguishable from those spun naturally. Secondly we will use artificially produced silk feedstocks, which can be obtained in large quantities, to spin fibres with predictable properties and in amounts suitable for investigating new industrial applications. Thirdly using our knowledge of how best to process a silk feedstock, we will then investigate non-fibre based processing of these materials, namely blade coating to make films and 3D printing to make complex structures. Finally the team will subject a range of artificial biopolymer feedstocks to our processing techniques and assess their potential in terms of sustainability and performance. The outputs from this project will encompass technological achievements and scientific insights. Technologically, the development of a biomimetic spinning rig will be the first of its kind and should be valuable as well as high profile. We will discover if an artificial feedstock can be processed into a material with properties equal to, if not better than, its natural progenitor. Extension of our spinning platform into other processing technologies will answer a highly controversial question "is silk a good material, or just a good fibre?" Investigating other biological materials, which have uses from food to healthcare, will reveal if it is possible to spin a biopolymer optimised for growth. Industry will be engaged throughout the project to identify we can learn from a system with 400 million years of research and development. Together, my team and I will provide an unprecedented understanding of how to sustainably process naturally sourced materials and the tools to drive this science into the 21st century.