![]() ![]() Their work could open a door to the production of reinforced, bionic silk fibers (developed through the natural spider-spinning process) that could serve as a high-performance material for things like flak jackets, suture threads, or bulletproof clothing.Ĭertain biominerals that occur naturally in insects’ protein structures and hard tissue (such as zinc, manganese, and copper) create incredible strength and hardness in their jaws, mandibles, and teeth – which is one reason spider silk is so strong and versatile. In their results, the researchers say they created a silk with the “highest fiber toughness reported to date” and a strength comparable to that of the world’s strongest carbon fibers. Scientists from the UK and Italy recently investigated whether incorporating various nanomaterials – namely graphene and carbon nanotubes – into the biological protein structures of spiders could create a superpowered silk. And with a little chemical enhancement, researchers just created a version that’s three times stronger and ten times tougher. The natural strength and toughness of spider silk makes it one of the most complex and fascinating materials on earth. On Twitter, Facebook, Google News, and Instagram.Spiders that ingested graphene and carbon nanotubes produced silk that was tougher than Kevlar – potentially paving the way for a new class of high-performing bio-enhanced materials. Other potential applications touted for nanotube fibres include artificial muscles, hydrogen storage and flat-screen TVs.įollow HT Tech for the latest tech news and reviews, also keep up with us They are conventionally created by vaporising graphite rods by electric arc in a chamber filled with a gas such as helium or hydrogen, and then allowed to cool slowly. They are hollow, cylindrical, hexagonal tubes made of a web of carbon atoms, just a few nanometres (millionths of a millimetre) across - 10,000 times narrower than the human hair - and several thousand nanometres long. That means the gel fibres are less fragile and less prone to breaking when they are reeled in.Ĭarbon nanotubes, discovered in 1991, are single molecules. That process was painstaking, because the jelly-like fibres could only be coaxed from the coagulation bath at the rate of about one centimetre (0.4 of an inch) per minute.īaughman says his achievement is to improve on this method by using nanotubes made from carbon monoxide, by using lithium dodecyl sulphate as a surfactant and by modifying the flow rates of the spinning and coagulation solutions so that the gel retains some of the polyvinyl alcohol. The flow of the solution aligned the mesh into ribbon-like fibres. ![]() That solution was then injected into a flowing steam of polymer solution which caused the nanotube material to recondense into a mesh. The ribbons were created by dispersing raw nanotube soot into a surfactant, or detergent, solution. In 2000, the first nanotube fibres were created by scientists from the Paul Pascal Research Centre at the University of Bordeaux, southwestern France. ![]() 'Promising electronic-textile applications for these fibres, which are easy to weave and sew, include distributed sensors, electronic interconnects, electromagnetic shields, antennas and batteries,' they write. ![]() They have already spun the fibres into cloth, making supercapacitors - devices that store electricity. The fibres are 'tougher than any natural or synthetic fibre described so far,' claim Baughman's spin doctors. It easily surpasses commercial rivals such as Kevlar and graphic fibre on every test. It matches spider silk for tensile strength - the strength needed to distort a substance before it is irretrievably deformed - and absorbs more than three times as much energy as spider dragline silk before it breaks. Weight for weight and diameter for diameter, it is five times stronger than steel. The result, a composite that comprises 60 per cent carbon nanotubes, is seven times stronger than previous attempts to spin carbon-nanotube fibres and many times quicker to make, they say. They placed single-walled nanotubes in a rotating bath of aqueous polyvinyl alcohol, yielding gelatinous fibres which were then coagulated, washed in an acetone bath, dried and then reeled up. ![]()
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