Natural spider silk has excellent mechanical properties. Researchers from the Graphene Flagship have found a way to boost the strength of spider's silk using graphene-based materials, paving the way for a novel class of high-performance bionic composites.
Researchers from the Graphene Flagship have demonstrated that graphene-based materials can be used to boost the properties of spider's silk. The silk -- produced naturally by the spiders, incorporating graphene and carbon nanotubes (rolled up graphene sheets) introduced in their environment -- had enhanced mechanical properties of up to three times the strength and ten times the toughness of the unmodified silks. The work is published in 2D Materials and was a collaboration between the University of Trento, Italy and the Cambridge Graphene Centre at the University of Cambridge, UK, within the Graphene Flagship's Polymer Composites Work Package.
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