This is sad, in a way; once I achieve my dream of exterminating all the spiders there won't be any left to spin this nanotube-reinforced fiber.
Unless the spiders start wearing spider nanotube silk weaved spider kevlar
Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
41–50 of 84 posts
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#42matching the toughness of state-of-the-art carbon fibers such as Kevlar
I don't think I would call kevlar a carbon fiber, is more like nylon.
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#43Wake up sheeple! Isn't this exactly how the Arachnids of Klendathu came into being?
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#44So, for those that don't remember what "regular" spider silk is like, or kevlar: nanomagic spider silk: 5400 MPa (5.4 GPa) Spider silk: 1600 MPa Silkworm silk: 500 MPa Aramid (Kevlar or Twaron): 3620 MPa Steel: 450 ~ 2600 MPa If I'm reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_tensile_strength correctly (and comparing the right numbers with the ones from the article...). At least kevlar seem to be in the same ballpa…
Interestingly the spider silk of 5.4 GPa has higher tensile strength than the specimens of "pure" carbon nanotubes of 2cm measured in labs at 3.6 GPa. The theoretical limit of cabon nanotubes is said to be at 300 GPa, and it's assumed that materials with about 130 GPa of tensile strength would be needed for the "rope" of an space elevator.
Can a human actually break such a tiny web?
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#45I don't know if it's a function of thickness, or if they've beaten these researchers to the punch, but black widow spiders spin by far the strongest thread I have ever encountered. There's never any doubt when I encounter a black widow web, and that's how I know to proceed with caution, when I'm working in my garage on the next Google haha.
Are you able to break their spidereb with your hands?
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#46The most interesting part of the article for me was:
"Nobody has discovered an efficient way to harvest spider silk, although not for lack of trying. "
I would love to know more about these attempts. Searching google brings up doesn't help much as the keywords "mine" and "web" can have a wholly different connotation.
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly the spider silk of 5.4 GPa has higher tensile strength than the specimens of "pure" carbon nanotubes of 2cm measured in labs at 3.6 GPa. The theoretical limit of cabon nanotubes is said to be at 300 GPa, and it's assumed that materials with about 130 GPa of tensile strength would be needed for the "rope" of an space elevator.
Can a human actually break such a tiny web?
According to wikipedia, the diameter of natural spider silk is 4µm, which is a cross section area of 1.26e-11 m². Multiplied by the tensile strength of natural spider silk (5.4 GPa) gives the capacity to lift 68 milinewtoms, or 7 Grams!
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%284e-6+meter+%2F+2%29%...
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#48So what happens when these spiders start reinforcing their exoskeletons with the ingested nanomaterial? Angry, eight-legged predators in ultratough kevlar, shooting indestructible web, that's what :)
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interestingly the spider silk of 5.4 GPa has higher tensile strength than the specimens of "pure" carbon nanotubes of 2cm measured in labs at 3.6 GPa. The theoretical limit of cabon nanotubes is said to be at 300 GPa, and it's assumed that materials with about 130 GPa of tensile strength would be needed for the "rope" of an space elevator.
Can a human actually break such a tiny web?
It's only ~4x stronger than regular spider silk, so I'm going to say yes.
Re: Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon
#50I just wrote this up myself. The results are remarkable, but the credit seems entirely due to the spiders. Well, not entirely, but the data is so limited! They only got a handful of spiders, from the lab's back yard essentially, and a bunch of them died from nanomaterial exposure, malnutrition, or both after 1 trial! Yet despite the bargain bin trappings, the results are so incredibly cool! The spiders just... incorp…
> Who would have guessed this would work?
A lot of people? The carbon has to end up somewhere. I don't see this as surprising at all, any more than it's surprising that if you, a human, eat a lot of arsenic, you'll add some of it to your hair. Growing hair and growing silk are not fundamentally different activities.