Development of Composite Membranes from Silk Waste and its Characterization

The textile industry is the second largest sector of global trade market and has to shoulder responsibilities towards maintaining the environment. Manufacturing of leather products for the fashion is moving towards alarming situation because of extensive nature of the chemicals used and resources utilized. Several alternatives for leather, the so-called artificial leathers are being made, but production of all these are involved with several synthetic polymers and chemicals that are not eco-friendly. It is also notable that the present fashion and international market scenario is shifting towards sustainability. Thereby an idea of structuring a composite membrane as an alternative for leather using silk waste has been materialized in the work. This composite makes use of silk waste and a fermentable organic liquor for the preparation. The basic concept of forming the leather like membrane is fermentation of the silk wastes using organic liquor. The study relates the properties of the membranes formed with various combination of the materials used, time involved and other variable factors. Key Words: Vegan, Leather, Silk, Silk waste, Reeling effluent, SCOBY