Spiders have spun SUPER SILK webs after being sprayed with wonder material graphene.
Graphene is made up of sheets of carbon just one atom thick and is exceptionally strong and conducts heat and electricity extremely well.
By combining it with spider silk - which is one of the strongest natural materials known to man - you end up with a type of 'super silk'.
Researchers from the University of Trento sprayed a a mixture of water and graphene onto 10 spiders. They sprayed another 10 spiders with carbon nanotubes and compared the results.
They found that in both cases the resulting webs had ‘unprecedented’ strength - around 3.5 times as strong as the toughest spider silk.
“In summary, spiders placed in an environment with water solutions of nanotubes or graphene produce dragline silk with unprecedented mechanical properties, realising the toughest achieved fibres, with a strength only comparable with that of the strongest carbon fibres or that of the limpet teeth [ the strongest known natural material ],” the authors wrote.
The researchers believe that the material could possible be used to create a giant net that would be able to catch aircraft, according to the New Scientist.
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