The upcycling of protein materials has been hindered by the difficulty in restructuring them to usable forms. Here, the authors reveal that concentrated ion pairs like LiBr disrupt the water network structure rather than directly interacting with proteins, and develop a sustainable keratin regeneration method with closed-loop recycling of ionic denaturant and rapid solidification of protein gels.
- Yichong Wang
- Junlang Liu
- Eugene I. Shakhnovich