Artificial spider silk: a supertough fiber with a simple strategy

Spider silks are tougher than almost all other materials in the world and thus are considered ideal materials by scientists and the industry. Although there have been tremendous attempts to prepare fibers from genetically engineered spider-silk proteins, it is still a very large challenge to artificially produce materials with a very high fracture energy because of the extremely low productivity and high cost. In this talk, a general introduction to spider silk, their key characteristics and their structures vs their properties will be introduced. A facile spider-silk-mimicking strategy using the chemical synthesis route will be reported for aciniform silk which is used by a spider for wrapping the prey and protecting their off springs. A supertough (~387 MJ m-3) fiber, more than twice the reported value of a common spider dragline is obtained from this strategy. The toughness of this fiber is comparable to the value of the toughest spider silk, the aciniform silk of Argiope trifasciata. The existence of β-sheet crystals and α-helical peptides simultaneously in a pseudoprotein polymer is the core for such success.