Water sprinkled spider with carbon nanotubes produces the highest intensity spider thread on the earth

ByBeverly Slone

"Spider thread" has higher tensile strength than steel ·Toughness·Young's modulusIt is said to have the highest strength with natural substances. Meanwhile, attracting attention in recent years as a high-performance material boasting the highest level of strength with artificial substancescarbon nanotubeYaGrapheneis. Italian scientists wiped the water mixed with graphene and carbon nanotubes with spiders to try out simple questions as to what will happen if these natural strongest substances and artificial strongest substances are mixed together, The thread of birth was born.

[1504.06751] Silk reinforced with graphene or carbon nanotubes spun by spiders
http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.06751

Spiders Ingest Nanotubes, Then Weave Silk Reinforced with Carbon | MIT Technology Review
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/537301/spiders-ingest-nanotubes-then-weave-silk-reinforced-with-carbon/

Spiders sprayed with graphene or carbon nanotubes spin super silk - life - 05 May 2015 - New Scientist
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27468-spiders-sprayed-with-graphene-or-carbon-nanotubes-spin-super-silk.html

Research teams such as Professor Nicola Maria Punho of Trent University in Italy should not mix graphene and carbon nanotubes in order to further improve the strength of the spider's string of the highest level of strength in natural materials I thought. So Punyo and others live in ItalyYulegumo, We adopted a straightforward method of spraying water mixed with graphene and carbon nanotubes.


In order to investigate which of graphene and carbon nanotube is effective for increasing the strength, we collected five young spider mice and tested them, and as a result, even when any substance was mixed, the strength was greatly improved. The strength increased more than when adding carbon nanotube-added water, the strength was about 3.5 times that of the spider's spider of the strongest natural substance, and the Young's modulus reached 47.8 GP. This figure is the highest strength among all the natural substances born so far, and the strongest fiber on earth is born now because it has toughness exceeding "Kevlar 49" which is one of the strongest synthetic fibers It is said that it did.


Dr. Emiliano Repole, a research team who gave surprising results, "From the phenomenal strength it can be said that it is hard to imagine that carbon nanotubes or graphene was simply coated on the surface of a spider's web.As for the hypothesis, There is a possibility that carbonaceous material was taken in and spirally kneaded in spider's yarn, but detailed mechanism is not well understood yet. "

Where the spider's thread is excellent, it is the place where the natural material has the highest level of strength, while having elasticity at the same time. Applying a spider's thread containing graphene and carbon nanotubes this time, a spectacular dream device has been devised that may be able to create a huge net that can catch a crashing airplane on the ground.

However, in this experiment, it was found that four giant clams that were sprayed with graphene / carbon nanotube-containing water died immediately after spraying, and a method to effectively collect and produce carbon-containing high-intensity spider's webs was found Is not ... However, as a hint to obtain a method to produce stronger synthetic fibers, it seems that there is a possibility that the result of this research will be used to a great extent.