{"id":519185,"date":"2010-04-07T03:33:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-07T07:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-8620568236356509464"},"modified":"2010-04-07T03:33:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-07T07:33:49","slug":"spider-silk-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/519185","title":{"rendered":"Spider Silk Research"},"content":{"rendered":"

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There is a design principle suggested here that we need to think about.  <\/span>The protein crystals are sized to optimize strength and ductility, and then weakly bound together in a way that is mutually supported.  <\/span>This is almost the description of a rope.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
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How it could be applied to materials engineering remains to be seen but it is suggestive.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
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The promise of course is a clever combination that could be simply extruded into existence while setting up extraordinary strength.  <\/span>Doing it better with materials at the macro level would be always welcome.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
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Spider silk research could lead to new super-materials<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
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Making bricks from straw may soon be possible and even desirable after scientists found spider silk could make ordinary materials stronger than steel.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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By Richard Alleyne<\/span><\/a>, Science Correspondent<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n

Published: 14 Mar 2010<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/science\/science-news\/7442243\/Spider-silk-research-could-lead-to-new-super-materials.html<\/a><\/span><\/i><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Researchers found that spider silk employs a unique crystal structure that converts an otherwise weak material into one stronger and less brittle than steel or ceramics.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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They believe in future it may be possible to copy spider ingenuity to create new classes of materials that are both incredibly flexible and strong out of cheap, ordinary elements.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Theoretically, they could even be made from wood, straw or hemp, say the scientists.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Carbon-based materials made the same way would be even stronger than spider silk.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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A key property of spider silk is its combination of strength and “ductility” \u2013 its ability to bend or stretch without breaking.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Most man-made materials, in contrast, sacrifice strength for ductility. Ceramics, for instance, are strong yet brittle.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge<\/st1:city>, US<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>, studied the fundamental properties of spider silk using computer models to simulate its structure.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
The silk is made from proteins including some that form thin flat crystals called beta-sheets.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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The researchers found that the size of the crystals was critical.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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When they measured about three nanometres (three millionths of a millimetre) across they made the silk ultra-strong and ductile.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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But if the crystals grew to five nanometres the material became weak and brittle.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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Spider silk was strong despite its components being connected by naturally weak hydrogen chemical bonds, said the scientists.<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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The geometry of the crystals allowed the hydrogen bonds to work co-operatively, shielding each other against external forces.<\/o:p><\/span><\/u><\/i><\/div>\n
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The researchers, led by Professor Markus Buehler from MIT’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, wrote in the journal Nature Materials: “The application of our findings to the design of synthetic materials could provide us with new material concepts based on inexpensive, abundant constituents.”<\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n
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There is a design principle suggested here that we need to think about.  The protein crystals are sized to optimize strength and ductility, and then weakly bound together in a way that is mutually supported.  This is almost the description of a rope. How it could be applied to materials engineering remains to be seen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-519185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519185\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}