Understanding the UV-Visible Propeties of Sericin from Bivoltine and Multivoltine Silk Cocoons

Abstract

Sericin is a protein, which is extracted from cocoons of Silk worm (Bombyx mori larvae). Cocoons of silk worm constitute of two proteins, Fibroin and Sericin. Fibroin has wide applications in the silk fabrics and considers being biomaterial. Whereas Sericin is the glue protein with several applications in Pharmaceuticals as Antioxidant and anti coagulates, wound healing agent and in cosmetics as Antiaging, moisturizing, whitening and UV protecting agent. Now days, several methods are employed for degumming of cocoons or extraction of Sericin from the cocoons. High temperature high pressure method (HTHP) is among the most efficient method for the extraction of Sericin that forms hydro gel upon storage at 4°C with good visco-elastic property. For extraction purpose two variants of silk worm cocoons are used namely Bivoltine and Multivoltine which can be differentiated by using different Spectroscopic method like UV Visible Spectrophotometer, FTIR, Circular dichroism Spectroscopy etc. other than differentiation in variants of cocoons. For Spectral analysis UV- Visible Spectrophotometer has been used for comparative analysis of Sericin with respect to the commercial UV filters and in conjunction with this both cocoons and samples from Multivoltine cocoons were exposed to simulate solar radiations, to investigate the effect of light on the Photo degradation of Chromophore.