Eco-Friendly Spider Silk Production

The silk of the humble spider comes with some pretty impressive properties. It’s one of the hardest materials found in nature, stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar. It is possible to stretch it several times its length before it breaks. For these reasons, replicating spider silk in the lab has been a bit of an experimentation among materials scientists for decades.

Spider silk contains protein fibers secreted by glands in the abdominal (or rear) part of spiders. The raw material of silk actually contains a liquid protein that passes through the spinnerets (silk-spinning organs). It is dry as it comes out from the abdomen of the spider’s body, and builds a thread. 

According to the leaders in spider silk research spidroins are proteins that build the majority of spider silk fibers. The spidroins are usually large proteins with repetitive sequences (Garb et al., 2010). The repetitive sequences form the toughness of the fibers. Different types of silk typically have various repetitive sequences.


Types of Products from Spider Silk

For centuries, native people have been using spider silk to make fishing lines, fishnets, headgear and bags. Despite the issue of generating silk in large quantities, the potential use of spider silk is still attractive to explore worldwide. Below are some instances of the applications:

Textile

In the textile industry, silk from the mulberry silkworm is widely used. However, it has some drawbacks, such as wrinkling, susceptible to degradation, low wet resiliency, and UV-induced yellowing

Superlenses

Silks are protein fibers that comprises crystalline and non-crystalline regions (Lin et al. 2020). Its transparency and ability helps it to focus light. Spider silk fibers are helpful for some imaging applications, including creating superlenses for optical instruments. When Spider Silk researchers shine a laser onto the superlenses, they can see miniscule structures (such as viruses, germs, or structures inside cells). Recently, researchers have successfully utilized spider silk to create superlenses and produce high-resolution images inside the human body. In the future, there is a possibility to use this technology to view how a virus infiltrates and causes damages in the cell.


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