This work can help us to design novel composites with enhanced properties, taking inspiration from nature. This is one of many examples showing potential in this area. Graphene is an area of great interest and innovation and the EU’s GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP is a key resource for furthering advances in this new domain.Īndrea Ferrari, director of the Cambridge Graphene Centre, Science and Technology Officer of the GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP, and Chair of the Flagship's management panel, told Science Daily, ‘The interaction between graphene and related materials and bio-materials is key to broadening their possible applications. Not only hugely strong, the fibres are biodegradable opening up new applications for textiles such as medical dressings.Ī variety of projects helped to support the research: REPLICA2 (Large-area replication of biological anti-adhesive nanosurfaces), KNOTOUGH (Super-tough knotted fibers) and BIHSNAM (Bio-inspired Hierarchical Super Nanomaterials) all contributed. ‘These are still early days, but our results are a proof of concept that paves the way to exploiting the naturally efficient spider spinning process to produce reinforced bionic silk fibres, thus further improving one of the most promising strong materials.’ The research was led by Professor Nicola Pugno from Italy's University of Trento who compared the strength shown by the enhanced silk as being comparable to limpet teeth or the strongest carbon fibres. The team observed an increment of the mechanical properties with respect to pristine silk, up to a fracture strength ~5.4 GPa and a toughness measurement of ~1570 J g−1. Bioinspired Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes as a Spider Silk Structure for Ultrahigh Mechanical Property. Carbon-Nanotube-Wrapped Spider Silks for Directed Cardiomyocyte Growth and Electrophysiological Detection The combination of nanostructures with biomaterials offers great opportunities in constructing innovative functional devices such as biosensors and actuators. The solutions were ingested by the spiders and when the silk was then harvested it was found that the graphene and nanotubes had made their way into the silk. ‘Spider silk reinforced by graphene or carbon nanotubes’, published in the online journal ‘2D Materials’™. The team set out their research recently in a letter titled To explore what would happen to those measurements if the spiders ingested graphene, researchers, supported by the EU-funded GRAPHENE FLAGSHIP, sprayed solutions of graphene and carbon nanotubes (CNTs) around the enclosures in which the spiders were kept. "It can be used as a humidity sensor, a strain sensor, an actuator (a device that acts as an artificial muscle, for lifting weights and more) and as an electrical wire.Spider silk provides a combination of great strength ~1.5 GPa and toughness ~150 J g−1. "It turns out that this high-grade, remarkable material has many functions," Steven said about the spider silk coated in carbon nanotubes. Researchers worldwide are intrigued by the properties of carbon nanotubes, including their amazing strength and ability to conduct electricity and heat. Producing spider silk fibers reinforced by carbon nanotubes and graphene yielded fibers with greatly improved mechanical properties surpassing synthetic. When things get that microscopically minute, they act very strange, say physicists. A nanotube's diameter is atleast 10,000 times smaller than a strand of human hair. Think of a nanotube as a one-atom thick sheet of carbon that has been rolled into an infinitesimally tiny tube. The experiment may result in practical applications in electrical conductivity, reports Science Daily. Steven is the lead investigator on the paper "Carbon nanotubes on a spider silk scaffold". The findings of the research are now published online in a journal Nature Communications. "If we can find a smart way to harness it, then we can use it to create a new, cleaner technology." "If we understand basic science and how nature works, all we need to do is find a way to harness it," Steven said. The strength and resilience of spider silk juxtaposed with the microscopical dimension of a nanotube can lead to electricity and heat conducting devices, says a study.Įden Steven, a physicist at Florida State University's MagLab facility, discovered during his experiments with spider silk - a strong polymer which is remarkably flexible and completely biodegradable - and carbon nanotubes that simple methods could result in surprising and environmental friendly outcomes.
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