#supermaterial

Spider webs are already strong enough to restrain small insects unlucky enough to fly into them, and soon, they may be capable of carrying the weight of a person.

In a new study published in 2D Materials, Nicola Pugno at the University of Trento in Italy and his team detail how they cranked arachnids’ already impressive metabolic process up to 11 by adding graphene and carbon nanotubes to a spider’s drinking water.

Afterward, the spider produced silk as it normally would, but the silk was five times stronger, putting it on par with the likes of pure carbon fibers and Kevlar — the strongest materials on Earth.

“We already know that there are biominerals present in the protein matrices and hard tissues of insects, which gives them high strength and hardness in their jaws, mandibles, and teeth, for example,” Pugno told The Sydney Morning Herald. “So our study looked at whether spider silk’s properties could be ‘enhanced’ by artificially incorporating various different nanomaterials into the silk’s biological protein structures.”

ONLY THE BEGINNING

The enhanced webbing is still in the early phases of research, and Pugno’s results were derived from just a small amount of spider silk, so far more testing is required. If all goes as hoped, the research could eventually lead to millions of enhanced spiders producing webbing that can be used to make parachutes, rope, cables, and more.

And those are just a few of the potential applications of this research. Pugno believes it could eventually be applied to creatures beyond spiders. “This process of the natural integration of reinforcements in biological structural materials could also be applied to other animals and plants, leading to a new class of ‘bionicomposites’ for innovative applications,” he asserted.

The ultimate engineering materials

Supermaterials have the unique power to deliver extreme performance solutions across a number of industries and applications. Our Element Six supermaterials product range and expertise spans synthetic diamond, cubic boron nitride and tungsten carbide.

Element Six is helping customers to harness the power of supermaterials Supermaterials can open the door to progress in a staggering range of applications. We have a successful track record of working with companies in many different sectors to provide built-for-purpose extreme performance supermaterial solutions. Our collaborative and flexible approach has seen both start-ups and multinationals successfully partnering with Element Six to harness the power of supermaterials.

Element Six has synthesised synthetic diamond for over 50 years and, along with our partners, we are at the forefront of supermaterials development. We recognise and understand the unique and extreme spectrum of properties of synthetic diamond, such as its unequalled hardness, which can be harnessed to deliver unrivalled solutions. Some of the applications that we have been involved with include synthetic diamond tweeters in high-end loudspeakers, synthetic diamond sensors in radiation therapy, synthetic diamond cutters for oil & gas drilling and synthetic diamond semi-conductors in the Large Hadron Collider.  

Synthetic diamond's unique properties Synthetic diamond's unique properties stem from its rigid lattice structure. Carbon atoms linked together in a dense tetrahedral arrangement make it incredibly strong and give it greater hardness than all other materials.  

The exceptional hardness of synthetic diamond has inherent advantages in mechanical and abrasive applications. Extending tool life reduces downtime and drives down operating costs and carbon footprints. Machinery keeps working at peak performance, delivering unwavering build accuracy and precision throughout its life cycle.

However, synthetic diamond has many other extreme properties, including the broadest optical transmission spectrum, the highest known thermal conductivity, a wide electronic band gap, the highest known resistance to thermal shock and many others. See synthetic diamond’s extreme properties for further information.

Not surprisingly, the use of specialist technology is required for the manufacture and processing of synthetic diamond. For example, when synthetic diamond is created using high pressure, high temperature synthesis, over 55 thousand atmospheres of pressure are delivered – equivalent to stacking approximately 5000 saloon cars on a jar of peanut butter, at temperatures that would melt steel.

There’s a lot more in the Element Six innovation pipeline Synthetic diamond is undisputedly an ultimate supermaterial but it’s not the only one. Through the experience and creativity of our people, we design, develop and manufacture supermaterials products based on cubic boron nitride and tungsten carbide, all of which bring their own unique and extreme performance properties to the development table.

In addition to those four supermaterials, we continue to research and develop new classes of material and applications with the potential to transform performance and deliver economic advantage in industry and science.

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