Research Data Leeds Repository

Citation

King, James A. and Hine, Peter J. and Baker, Daniel and Creswick, Matthew and Ries, Michael (2025) Data for Hybrid Biocomposites: From Molecular Behaviour to Material Properties in Silk Fibroin/Cellulose Films. University of Leeds. [Dataset] https://doi.org/10.5518/1677

Dataset description

Data Set for the associated article, "Hybrid Biocomposites: From Molecular Behaviour to Material Properties in Silk Fibroin/Cellulose Films". Hybrid biomaterials of silk fibroin and cellulose offer improvements over single-component alternatives in the pursuit of optimised and sustainable materials: showing superior strength, biocompatibility, and flexibility. We investigate the behaviours of fully dissolved and coagulated hybrid films at various compositions and characterise the system with X-ray diffraction, dynamic mechanical thermal, thermogravimetric, and mechanical analyses. We confirm a system optimum in modulus, maximum strength, and maximum strain at failure (2.2 GPa, 28 MPa, and 3.3 % respectively) at 85-95 % cellulose and 5-15 % silk fibroin hybrid composition. Thermogravimetric analysis indicates this is due to increasing interaction density in hybrid compositions correlated with the formation of a hybrid mixed phase up to 4 wt %. We recreate conflicting trends in literature showing sample flexibility improving and reducing with addition of silk fibroin and indicate this is due to variations in sample creep and strain rate. We report a slow stress relaxation and time-dependent viscoelasticity causing this, using comparative mechanical tests at different rates of deformation. We propose a slipping mechanism for stress relaxation similar to those seen in other biopolymer-based biological systems, for example actin filaments in cytoskeletons.

Divisions:	Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Chemical and Process Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences > School of Physics and Astronomy
Related resources:	Location Type https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2025.145931 Publication
License:	Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Date deposited:	24 Jul 2025 13:39
URI:	https://archive.researchdata.leeds.ac.uk/id/eprint/1437
Additional details Additional details Creators or authors: Creators ORCID Other ID Email Primary affiliation Primary affiliation ID Primary affiliation ID type Secondary affiliation Secondary affiliation ID Secondary affiliation ID type King, James A. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4424-9118 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Hine, Peter J. University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Baker, Daniel https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5145-3320 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Creswick, Matthew https://orcid.org/0009-0007-6421-0946 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Ries, Michael https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8050-3200 University of Leeds https://ror.org/024mrxd33 ror Type of data: Dataset Research funders: EPSRC Grant numbers: EP/S023631/1 Publication date: 2025 Resource language: English Metadata language: English Publisher: University of Leeds Contact email: m.e.ries@leeds.ac.uk Last Modified: 13 Aug 2025 14:19

Files

Documentation

readme_1677.txt [3kB] readme_1677.txt [3kB] readme_1677.txt [3kB] Security: Anyone File name: readme_1677.txt Content type: Documentation Mime-Type: text/plain License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) File size: 3kB

Data

Figure_Data.xlxs [6MB] Figure_Data.xlxs [6MB] Figure_Data.xlxs [6MB] Security: Anyone File name: Figure_Data.xlsx Content type: Data Description: All the figures and data for the figures Mime-Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) File size: 6MB