Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, November 21 (Xinhua)-- the Lin Zhi team of the School of Life Sciences of Tianjin University has proposed a new method for preparing super-strong artificial silk, converting cheap ordinary silk into man-made silk with ultra-high strength for the first time, according to an official statement from Tianjin University. The tensile strength of this artificial silk fiber is more than 70% higher than the average strength of natural spider silk.

CTOnews.com learned that the relevant results have been published in the famous international material science journal matter through the title of "Arti materials cial superstrong silkworm silk surpasses natural spider silks", DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2022.08.028.

To put it simply, inspired by the artificial spinning of spider egg silk, they removed the sticky outer layer of ordinary silk through a special chemical bath, and combined with the method of metal ion-assisted reinforcement, a super silk fiber with better performance than spider silk was obtained. This is the first time in history that human beings have converted cheap ordinary silk into artificial silk with ultra-high strength and toughness that surpasses that of natural spider silk.

CTOnews.com learned that the tensile strength of the artificial silk fiber reached 2.0 GPa, which was more than 70% higher than the average strength of natural spider silk, and had a high average Young's modulus of 43 GPa, which was much higher than that of all known natural microfilaments.

Historically, silk has been widely used in human society. Today, silk materials can also be used as sutures and surgical nets in biomedicine. Because of its biocompatibility, mechanical properties and biodegradability, it can also be used in tissue regeneration experiments.

However, this material also has its limitations. For example, Professor Chris Holland of the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom pointed out: "once the protein in silk is destroyed too much, it is difficult to reweave it into a high-performance product."

According to reports, the research team used the method of dissolving the outer adhesive layer of silk assisted by sodium dodecyl sulfate and sodium carbonate. The cocoon degumming rate of this method is about 28%, and the internal protein molecular weight is still large (> 350kDa), which ensures its mechanical properties to a certain extent.

The resulting RSF-SN fiber showed extremely high tensile strength (2054 ±177MPa), which was 200% and 70% higher than that of degummed natural silk (610 ±84 MPa) and spider silk (1117 ±275MPa), and its average Young's modulus was 43 ±6 GPa, which was significantly higher than that of all known natural microfilaments (

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.