I sense a new explanation for Spiderman's webs on the next reboot. But seriously, are we anywhere close to using this stuff for human benefit? Or near learning how these worms do what they do? This sounds fabulously awesome.
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Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
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Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#42Silkworm son: "What's for breakfast?" Silkworm dad: "NANOTUBES."
For some reason, attempts at humour here on HN never leave readers indifferent. I should say thank you, I was very tempted by a 'reel of transistors' version.
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
Silk reinforced with carbon nanotubes still isn't strong enough for a space elevator :'(
How about carbon nanotubes reinforced with carbon nanotubes?
Gluing the tubes together is one of the biggest hurdles, mainly because the individual tubes aren't long enough. If we could make 30cm-1m long tubes (of the strongest kind) we could do with essentially sparsely interlink the tubes, esentially having the nanotubes become part of the matrix. This would also give us freedom in choosing the rest of the matrix for the other properties needed.
So while not exactly nanotube reinforced nanotubes, pretty darn close :)
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#44I sense a new explanation for Spiderman's webs on the next reboot. But seriously, are we anywhere close to using this stuff for human benefit? Or near learning how these worms do what they do? This sounds fabulously awesome.
A company called Bolt Threads raised a $50M round this year. It looks like they're going to miss their 2016 release of spider silk clothing, but it also seems like a release date and real product are right around the corner. https://boltthreads.com/2016/05/11/bolt-raises-50-million-an...
Sort of. Spider silk is made from both a chemical process and physical manipulation by spinnerets. We can make the chemicals but they are not nearly as strong without the spinnerets thus clothing not body armor.
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#45Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Space elevator! Monopolize space
Silk reinforced with carbon nanotubes still isn't strong enough for a space elevator :'(
ignoring the UFO aspect of this, maybe this tech would help a 12 mile long tether from breaking as the 1996 nasa version did...
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
A company called Bolt Threads raised a $50M round this year. It looks like they're going to miss their 2016 release of spider silk clothing, but it also seems like a release date and real product are right around the corner. https://boltthreads.com/2016/05/11/bolt-raises-50-million-an...
Sort of. Spider silk is made from both a chemical process and physical manipulation by spinnerets. We can make the chemicals but they are not nearly as strong without the spinnerets thus clothing not body armor.
This sounds like the perfect opportunity for some researchers to create nanobots or something to act like spinnerettes. Wonder if there has been any such thing?
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#48Genuine question: Who the heck thinks "hey, let me feed graphene and carbon nano-tubes to some silkworms!!"
I am amazed that someone thought of that... :-) but what was the previous thought process that lead to this idea? Were they feeding them other materials to test out and then arrived at "How about this?" or was this the first "What if..."
Re: Silkworms that eat carbon nanotubes and graphene spin tougher silk
#49I sense a new explanation for Spiderman's webs on the next reboot. But seriously, are we anywhere close to using this stuff for human benefit? Or near learning how these worms do what they do? This sounds fabulously awesome.
They already tried it with spiders: https://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1504/1504.06751.pdf/ The problem is spiders are difficult to farm, unlike silkworms.
after reading the wikis about golden orb spiders today -- this makes sense.
The guy who made that amazing garment from 1.2 million Golden Orb spiders [0] was hand harvesting the thread in a really primitive way...[1]
Humans have been harvesting silkworm thread for ages, so we probably have much better methods of mass harvest.
