Spider silk will direct synthesis of new materials, researchers

15 Mar '10

4 min read

Buehler says the work has implications far beyond just understanding silk. He notes that the findings could be applied to a broader class of biological materials, such as wood or plant fibers, and bio-inspired materials, such as novel fibers, yarns and fabrics or tissue replacement materials, to produce a variety of useful materials out of simple, commonplace elements. For example, he and his team are looking at the possibility of synthesizing materials that have a similar structure to silk, but using molecules that have inherently greater strength, such as carbon nanotubes.

The long-term impact of this research, Buehler says, will be the development of a new material design paradigm that enables the creation of highly functional materials out of abundant, inexpensive materials. This would be a departure from the current approach, where strong bonds, expensive constituents, and energy intensive processing (at high temperatures) are used to obtain high-performance materials.

Peter Fratzl, professor in the department of biomaterials in the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, who was not involved in this work, says that “the strength of this team is their pioneering multi-scale theoretical approach” to analyzing natural materials. He adds that this is “the first evidence from theoretical modeling of how hydrogen bonds, as weak as they might be, can provide high strength and toughness if arranged in a suitable way within the material.”

Professor of biomaterials Thomas Scheibel of the University of Bayreuth, Germany, who was also not involved in this work, says Buehler's work is of the “highest caliber,” and will stimulate much further research. The MIT team's approach, he says, “will provide a basis for better understanding of certain biological phenomena so far not understood.”

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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