Spider Silk, Wonder of Nature



Spider silk is tougher than steel. Since nature resources are considered superior and we all believe that. Humans have tried to beat nature but it has always been beaten them in this competition.

Tensile Strength:

Comparing the tensile strength of steel and spider silk is not equivalent. Since the comparison of both these materials and the stress, they bare before breaking is still controversial. The spider silk value of tensile strength is just above 1 Gpa, a unit of measuring force per unit area. That relates to a mid-range value for steel, where strengths range from 0.2 Gpa to nearly 2 Gpa.
Further, if we talk more about the tensile strength, it is only one critical property. The stiffness of silk has an ability to deform elastically when force is applied and is nothing less than that of steel. Spider silk appears to beat steel by a large margin is its density, which is almost six times less. On the basis of per-weight, silk starts to look more powerful, with the ratio of strength to density beating steel.

Bio mimicry:

There are many speculations why spider silk is enthusiastically studied and one of them is because of our interest in mimicking nature through “biomimicry”. The main difference between natural materials and man-made ones is not about so much about physical properties. It’s about how they are made.

Understand the mystery of the web:

As we all are familiar with the properties of spider silk. Spider silk is a protein, and proteins are created inside the living cells. This process starts with a body temperature of the spider, unlike the manufacturing of steel, which takes place in a furnace. The magic of spider silk has everything to do with the transmission of information through DNA. If we analyze human mind and nature process, human engineering is skilled at using more energy to solve problems. Nature does it through the use of better information.

Mechanical Properties:

If we focus on the mechanical properties, the proteins in spider are made of abundant elements such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. And the only byproduct of the reaction that makes proteins is water. Researching about the natural materials that spider silk contains are claimed to be “Eco-friendly”. The reason being, spider silk use less energy and abundant elements, making the processing superior to most engineering materials.

Weight:

Spider Silk is stronger than steel on a per weight basis and environmentally friendly. These nature based processes have created a dramatic story about why the mimicry of natural materials is a quickly growing area of materials science and engineering.
Humans are yet not able to fully assume how spider silk is formed and are constantly investigating on it. There was a trial made at commercialization through “spider goats”. In this experiment, a genetically modified goat produced milk carrying an extra protein that could be extracted and spun into spider silk thread. This research ended in bankruptcy. But researchers did not lose hope and are still studying how spider silk delivers its strength through sequences of genes present in spider DNA.
Spider Silk has still maintained its mystery. To reveal this mystery, Kriaglabs has been working hard 365 days and 24/7 to come to a conclusion. Our expert has also started their experiment in Vietnam to understand what they can do for the world. To know more about us, log on to http://www.kraiglabs.com/spider-silk/.

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