Fig. 2. Process flowchart for the regenerated silk fibroin solution prepared from natural Bombyx mori cocoons.

In addition to the desired silk fibroin, the natural Bombyx mori cocoons also mainly contain another protein, sericin, which is the cause of the immune responses and needs to be removed. Subsequently, the extracted silk fibers are prepared in solution form and purified to obtain the regenerated silk fibroin solution. The regenerated silk fibroin solution can be further processed into different shapes, such as silk fibers, silk films, silk sponges, and silk hydrogels, and it can also be doped with other materials to form composite functional materials⁶³. Reproduced with permission from RSC (2019)