*2.1. Materials*

The raw materials (*Antheraea pernyi* silk cocoons, Liaoning Tussah Silk Institute Co., Ltd., Dandong, China) were applied to prepare the regenerated sericin (SS). N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM, 98%, Aladdin Reagent, Shanghai, China), *N*,*N*,*N* ,*N*-tetramethylethylenediamine (TEMED, 99%, Aladdin Reagent, Shanghai, China), ammonium peroxodisulfate (APS, Sinopharm Chemical Reagent Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China) and glutaric dialdehyde (GA, 25%, Kermel Reagent, Tianjin, China) were all analytical grade and used without further purification. Poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO, Mw = 400,000 Da, Shanghai, China) was used without further purification.

#### *2.2. Preparation of the Sericin/PNIPAM/PEO Composite Spinning Solution*

Antheraea pernyi is a wild nonmulberry silkworm species, which is a protein fiber and composed of fibroin and sericin [25]. Antheraea pernyi silks were considered increasingly for the textile and apparel industries [26] and medical applications [27] in recent years for their excellent mechanical properties and biocompatibility. As previously reported, regenerated sericin (SS) was extracted from *Antheraea pernyi* raw silk cocoons by using LiBr extractive technique [28]. Then, the regenerated sericin and PEO were dissolved in water under continuous magnetic stirring at 80 ◦C to prepare a mixed solution. The concentrations of sericin and PEO were 6 wt.% and 15 wt.%, respectively. The monomer

solution (6.5 wt.%) was produced by putting the NIPAM monomer in distilled water and the initiator agen<sup>t</sup> (APS) was all mixed with the above sericin/PEO solution, respectively. Then, the sericin/PNIPAM/PEO interpenetrating network blending spinning solution was prepared by adding TEMED in an as-prepared mixed solution and stirred at 40 ◦C for 1 h. The concentration values of the sericin, PEO and NIPAM were chosen by our early investigator's literature [24,29]. The formulations, conductivity and surface tension of blending solution is shown in Tables 1 and 2, respectively. The HAAKE RheoStress 1 rheometer (25 mm diameter plate with 1 mm gap) was used to estimate the blending spinning solution viscosity at room temperature under the increasing shear rate from 2 to 100 s<sup>−</sup><sup>1</sup> (see Figure 1).


**Table 1.** The formulations of the interpenetrating network blending spinning solution.

**Table 2.** The conductivity and surface tension of the interpenetrating network blending spinning solution.


**Figure 1.** Viscosity of the interpenetrating network blending spinning solution.

#### *2.3. Fabrication of Electrospun Sericin/PNIPAM/PEO Nanofibers and Functionalization of Cotton Fabric*

Cotton fabric was pretreated by putting it into ultrasonic cleaners which contain distilled water for 0.5 h at room temperature and then dried in the air. The primary sericin/PNIPAM/PEO spinning solutions were loaded into a syringe equipped with a 0.5 mm diameter metal needle and electrospun on the prepared cotton fabric using an electrospinning machine. The functional cotton fabric was prepared by putting the above cotton fabric with nanofibers on the airtight container with glutaraldehyde vapor at room temperature for 24 h for the further cross-linking. The glutaraldehyde showed adequate

safety, having been well applied in the field of biological medicinal materials [30,31]. The illustration of the functional cotton fabric is shown in Figure 2.

**Figure 2.** Schematic illustration of the (**A**) fabrication and (**B**) preparation of multifunctional cotton fabric.

The machine (KH08, Jinan, China) was purchased from Jinan Liangrui Technology Co., which had a high voltage direct current (HVDC) and a syringe pump. It was used to prepare the electrospun nanofibers. In this work, all of the electrospinning process was performed at 65% relative humidity (RH), room temperature. The electrospinning parameters are shown as follows: applied voltage 30 kV, working distance 15 cm and flow rate 0.03 mL/h. The parameters for the electrospinning experiments were chosen by our early investigator's literature [24,29]. The nanofibers were deposited at about 1 h and obtained the mats.
