Preparation of Regenerated Wool Keratin Films from Wool Keratin-Ionic Liquid Solutions

The regenerated wool keratin films were prepared from the wool keratin/ionic liquid solutions through water, methanol and ethanol as coagulation solvents in this article. It could be suggested from the results that [AMIM](+)center dot Cl- ionic liquid has higher solubility for wool keratin fibers than [BMIM](+)center dot Cl- ionic liquid. IR data showed the part of the disulfide bonds was broken during the dissolution. It could be seen from XRD data that the regenerated films exhibited a beta-sheet structure and the disappearance of the a-helix structure. TGA curves indicated that the thermal stability of regenerated wool keratin films decreased slightly compared to nature wool fibers. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 127: 2648-2653, 2013