Spiderman, A.K.A. “The webslinger”: is a teenager in New York who is bitten by a radioactive spider turning him into a guy with spider-like abilities. Even with these abilities, one main problem he has revolves around his webbing/spider silk. For Tobey Maguire, his webs would stop when he was under too much stress along with other circumstances. Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland relied on machines called web-shooters, which would run out of web fluid or malfunction. Even though they had difficulties involving their webbing, scientists in the real world have created a way to more efficiently produce spider silk at a higher quality. Now, people who don’t know the value of spider silk, so this article will discuss the value of spider silk, what it can be used for, and how scientists are planning on mass producing it.
So what is spider silk? Spider silk is the substance that spiders use to make their webs. At first glance, spider silk appears to be very fragile, Like a spider web compared to humans. Like other substances spider silk is stronger than it looks at first for example a strand of spider silk the diameter of a pencil is strong enough to stop a commercial plane. For further explanation, spider silk has a stronger tensile strength than steel. Specifically spider silk has a tensile strength of 1.3 GPa. This makes this an amazing material for strong rope or some forms of fabric that need to be strong.
Now onto the practical uses of spider silk, the strength and durability of spider silk makes it a great material for many projects. One of the most widely wanted products created from spider silk is bulletproof fabric. While this wouldn’t remove the pain from the impact it would greatly lower the dangers of being shot. As stated earlier, you could also use spider silk to create really strong ropes at small diameters. This could greatly impact the world that revolves around a need for strong ropes of strings/thread. One of the main setbacks of spider silk’s strength would be its reaction to water, which causes it to unravel and lowers its tensile strength. Currently, scientists are working on a way to combat that problem.
With the importance and uses in place it’s time to discuss the advancement in spider silk production. One of the very first methods of producing spider silk was through genetically modified goats which produced milk that could be converted into spider silk, but this method was time-consuming and not efficient. Along with this scientists have also attempted to genetically modify bacteria to produce spider silk. Yet, the most successful method so far is through genetically modified silkworms. These silkworms have proven to be able to produce higher quantities of more accurate spider silk. Most people believe that using silkworms will be a very efficient method due to the fact that silkworms were designed to mass produce silk. Overall the results of the spider silk have been very promising. Even though they have found a fairly successful method of producing spider silk, there are still obstacles to overcome involving the genetic aspects of it, and there’s still a possibility for a more accurate spider silk to be produced. While we are close, there are still problems to overcome, but with a little more work, we will soon be able to use spider silk to change the world.
