Abstract Spider silk is stronger than steel and is stronger than Kevlar, a composite that is widely used in the production of body armor. However, the spider silk of human imitation has not been comparable to the real thing. Today, a German research team has developed man-made fibers of the same hardness and spider silk to make...
Spider silk is stronger than steel and is stronger than Kevlar, a composite that is widely used in the production of body armor. However, the spider silk of human imitation has not been comparable to the real thing. Today, a German research team has developed man-made fibers of the same hardness and spider silk, making it possible to make safer airbags. Previous efforts to imitate spider silk have focused on two types of molecules. One class creates hard crystalline materials, and the other creates a more gel-like substance. The crystals are suspended in the gel to form large proteins. However, Thomas Scheibel and his colleagues from Bayreuth University in Germany realized that this neglected two smaller molecules that helped to align the filaments. "They don't contribute to the final structure and properties of the fiber, which is why both have been ignored before," Scheibel said.
The team spliced ​​the spider's silk gene into E. coli, allowing the latter to produce all four molecules in a mixture of alcohol and water. The researchers then used a method called wet spinning to lengthen the fibers to create rayon. When stretched just after it is formed, the fiber is the strongest, much like a spider starts the web with its hind legs to stretch and align the molecules.
The material obtained is not as strong as a spider silk, but it is more elastic. This means that it can't withstand a lot of pressure without breaking, but it can be stretched longer. “It’s not surprising,†Scheibel said, because the real spider silk is made up of three proteins with different properties, and his team only uses the genome that makes up the most elastic proteins. Currently, they are developing higher-grade rayon made from all three proteins.
At the same time, the toughness of existing fibers makes them impossible to use in the production of automotive airbags. Scheibel said that airbags made of materials such as Kevlar are currently tough but not elastic enough, and rayon can solve this problem, provided the team can scale up production. However, this may be a bit difficult.
Solid-phase synthesis, as the main process in the production of Bio-pharmaceuticals, is widely used for the synthesis of peptides, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and so on. The synthesis method is to bound the functional group such as methyl on a bead, which primiarly is polystyrene microsphere with low crosslink.
To be the core basic material, the characteristic of the beads have a great influence on the properties of peptides and deoxyribonucleic acid to be produced.
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