added 330 uL of water to the concentrated sample to dilute it down to 15% w/v
a small note: after refrigeration (4 C), the concentrated sample will look like it has gelled. However, if you let it "thaw" for a while, it will become liquid again.
Spinning
we used an 18 gauge needle to draw 0.8mL of the silk into a 1 mL syringe
then replaced the needle with 10cm of the PEEK tubing
interestingly, no air bubbles formed when drawing up the plunger. (drawn up very slowly)
extruded the dope at 6 uL/min, into 3 different solvent
Ammonium Sulfate
the dope just coagulated into a blob. Similar to cellulose acetate spinning into water
Ethanol (70%)
the dope came out as a fiber
however, sometimes it seemed like multiple fibers were extruding from the tube at once
upon using tweezers to pull away the mass at the tip of the fiber, it sometimes started extruding as a single strand
Isopropanol (70%)
it was very similar to the ethanol spin
sometimes, multiple strands came out of the PEEK tubing at once
sometimes, a single strand comes out
the fibers that came out settled on the bottom of the beaker in a tangled mass
all fibers were left to soak in the coagulation bath overnight