Silk reinforced with graphene or carbon nanotubes spun by spiders

TL;DR

This study demonstrates a novel method of producing enhanced silk by directly incorporating graphene and carbon nanotubes through spider spinning, resulting in significantly improved mechanical properties and potential for advanced bionic materials.

Contribution

It introduces a new biofabrication technique where spiders are sprayed with dispersions to produce reinforced silk with superior strength and toughness.

Findings

Fracture strength up to 5.4 GPa

Young's modulus up to 47.8 GPa

Toughness modulus up to 2.1 GPa or 1567 J/g

Abstract

Here, we report the production of silk incorporating graphene and carbon nanotubes directly by spider spinning, after spraying spiders with the corresponding aqueous dispersions. We observe a significant increment of the mechanical properties with respect to the pristine silk, in terms of fracture strength, Young's and toughness moduli. We measure a fracture strength up to 5.4 GPa, a Young's modulus up to 47.8 GPa and a toughness modulus up to 2.1 GPa, or 1567 J/g, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the highest reported to date, even when compared to the current toughest knotted fibres. This approach could be extended to other animals and plants and could lead to a new class of bionic materials for ultimate applications.