Scientists have developed a fluid that, when fired from a gadget, transforms into a strong sticky fiber that lifts objects several times its weight. This is a breakthrough inspired by the comic book superhero Spider-Man.
Inspired by the silk secreted by moths, spiders, and several other insects, researchers have long sought to create strong fibers that can be deployed as tethers.
But researchers at Tufts University say it has been difficult to develop fibers with the stiffness, elasticity and adhesive properties of spider silk.
According to a new “accidental advance” described in Masu. Advanced functional materials. “I was working on a project using silk fibroin to make a very strong adhesive, and as I was cleaning glassware with acetone, I noticed that a cobweb-like substance had formed on the bottom of the glass. “We realized that,” said study co-author Marco Lo Presti.
Researchers who first tried to replicate spider silk noticed that fibroin solutions formed semi-solid gels when exposed to chemicals such as ethanol or acetone for more than a few hours. However, when using the chemical dopamine, the coagulation process occurred “almost immediately” and produced high-tension, sticky fibers.
The dopamine mixture appears to have stripped silk proteins of water, facilitating their transition from liquid to solid state, the scientists said.
They also discovered that a thin stream of silk solution surrounded by a layer of acetone turned into a sticky solid when fired through a special needle. As the acetone evaporated in the air, the fibers stuck to any objects they came in contact with.
Adding chitosan, a protein found in insect exoskeletons, increases fiber tension by up to 200 times, and adding chemicals like borate buffers increases adhesion by about 18 times, according to scientists. It seems like he did.
The fiber diameter can be controlled to range from the width of a human hair to approximately 0.5 mm, depending on the needle hole.
Scientists say fibers fired in this way can pick up objects more than 80 times their weight under a variety of conditions. In various tests, the fibers captured “a steel bolt, a laboratory tube floating in water, a scalpel partially buried in sand, and a block of wood from about 12 centimeters away.”
Spider silk is still about 1,000 times stronger, but scientists say the new fiber can be modified for a variety of uses. “This process can be fine-tuned to achieve controlled production of adhesive hydrogel fibers that form instantaneously,” said Dr. Lo Presti.
“This is really superhero-inspired material.”
