Mechanical and structural properties of major ampullate silk from spiders fed carbon nanomaterials.

Sean P Kelly,I-Min Tso,Forest Shih-Sen Chien,Jwu-Sheng Hu,Kun-Ping Huang,Riza Ariyani Nur Khasanah,Chen-Pan Liao,Chung-Lin Wu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0241829

Abstract

The dragline silk of spiders is of particular interest to science due to its unique properties that make it an exceptional biomaterial that has both high tensile strength and elasticity. To improve these natural fibers, researchers have begun to try infusing metals and carbon nanomaterials to improve mechanical properties of spider silk. The objective of this study was to incorporate carbon nanomaterials into the silk of an orb-weaving spider, Nephila pilipes, by feeding them solutions containing graphene and carbon nanotubes. Spiders were collected from the field and in the lab were fed solutions by pipette containing either graphene sheets or nanotubes. Major ampullate silk was collected and a tensile tester was used to determine mechanical properties for pre- and post-treatment samples. Raman spectroscopy was then used to test for the presence of nanomaterials in silk samples. There was no apparent incorporation of carbon nanomaterials in the silk fibers that could be detected with Raman spectroscopy and there were no significant improvements in mechanical properties. This study represents an example for the importance of attempting to replicate previously published research. Researchers should be encouraged to continue to do these types of investigations in order to build a strong consensus and solid foundation for how to go forward with these new methods for creating novel biomaterials.

Highlights

Carbon nanomaterials have been a major focus of scientific research beginning with the first discovery of fullerene allotropes in the late 1980s [1] and in particular since the isolation and extraction of 2D graphene sheets in 2004 [2]
It is important to validate the findings reported within the Lepore et al, [19] study before future work will be able to make any significant advances in the creation of new biomaterials involving carbon nanomaterials incorporated within the spider silk matrix
If focus is directed to just post-treatment silk, there were no significant differences between the control and the two experimental groups for any of the tensile properties (Fig 1A to 1C)

Summary

Introduction

Carbon nanomaterials have been a major focus of scientific research beginning with the first discovery of fullerene allotropes in the late 1980s [1] and in particular since the isolation and extraction of 2D graphene sheets in 2004 [2]. Due to their unique thermal, structural and mechanical properties, there have been numerous applications of graphene sheets (GS) and its allotropes such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the fields of electronics and medicine [1, 3,4,5].

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion