Performance measurement of sericin-coated silks during aging

Silks are among the most precious ancient and historic artefacts worldwide. While washing removes the natural gum from the fibres during the fabrication of most silk textiles, for a small proportion of historic silks some or perhaps all of the sericin still remains. This paper investigated the effect of sericin coating on the aging of silk fibroin by means of ATR and tensile testing. The results show that sericin can provide some extent of protection from light and heat aging. However, in high humidity envi...