Researchers in Sweden have successfully developed a reliable technique for spinning artificial spider silk.
But of all of those features, each pales in comparison to the eight-legged beasts’ ability to spin a silky building material that’s lightweight, largely biocompatible and stronger than steel.
For decades now, researchers have been working to unravel the secrets of industrial-scale spider silk production. Though it seems like it would be straight forward to raise spiders for the sole purpose of producing silk, the creatures don’t take to captivity very well, and they don’t produce enough silk at any one time to jumpstart a material factory.
To get around this problem, researchers at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Karolinska Institutet have engineered a step-by-step method that can produce massive amounts of artificial spider silk, including strands that can reach up a kilometer in length.
"This is the first successful example of biomimetic spider silk spinning. We have designed a process that recapitulates many of the complex molecular mechanisms of native silk spinning. In the future this may allow industrial production of artificial spider silk for biomaterial applications or for the manufacture of advanced textiles," said researcher Anna Rising.
Though the Swedish spider silk project is still only inching towards its industrial production goals, material engineers, mechanical designers and futurists across the planet are likely salivating over the idea of having access to a material that can mimic all of the properties of spider silk.
If artificial spider silk production does becoming scalable wild ideas like improved electronics, more robust structural materials, stronger medical supplies and possibly even space elevator cables could be realized.
For another fascinating of spider silk, find out how Engineers Use Spider Silk to Create a Microscope Superlens.