Green ultrasonic engineering of hierarchical microphase structures and enhanced properties in chitosan-silk blends across molecular weight ranges.

ABSTRACT: Ultrasound processing offers a sustainable and non-chemical strategy for controlling molecular organization in soft materials. In this work, we show that ultrasonication can reorganize chitosan-silk blends into ordered microphase architectures similar to classical AB block copolymers without any chemical synthesis providing a novel strategy to control nanoscale morphology and enhance material functionality. Composite films were prepared using Bombyx mori silk fibroin and chitosan spanning low, medium, and high molecular weight ranges, followed by ultrasound treatment under optimized time and power conditions. The resulting materials were examined using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to resolve microphase domains, Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to probe molecular interac

SUBMITTER: Poluri N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12906067 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature