Although the industrial engineering community has succeeded in producing some miraculous lightweight materials for applications ranging from aerospace to 3D printing, sometimes Mother Nature proves to be the greatest designer of all. The most recent example is the spider, or more specifically, the silk it generates for spinning webs.
Spider silk has long been investigated due to its natural tensile strength and toughness. It compares favorably to man-made polymers and synthetic fibers like Kevlar at the molecular level. This fact led researchers from the Graphene Flagship to investigate ways of boosting spider silk performance. They started by spraying an enclosure used to house the spiders with a solution of graphene and carbon nanotubes.
Because of how tightly its atoms are packed, graphene is incredibly dense and therefore 200 times stronger than steel. These properties lend to the use of carbon nanotubes as a means of increasing product strength and stiffness for items such as baseball bats and car parts.
After the spiders ingested the solution, they were able to produce silk that was up to three times stronger (based on fracture strength testing) and ten times tougher than before. The results of this test open a number of doors leading to methods of producing a new type of material that provides a rare combination of strength and stability and which can be easily manipulated into numerous shapes.
Researchers see potential applications for this reinforced silk in products that include medical bandages, parachutes, and military and law enforcement uniforms.