Insect-inspired project could save energy and money

Insect-inspired project could save energy and money

Spinning fibres the way silkworms do in nature could cut processing costs tenfold and reduce the energy used by more than 90 per cent compared to current techniques.



Researchers at the University of Sheffield developed a method to analyse the energy used in the formation of fibres in natural silk and synthetic materials which has now been used to compare the unspun silk from a silkworm and the materials which make the strongest synthetic fibres available.

Collaborating with silk experts from The University of Oxford's Department of Zoology, Oleksandr Mykhaylyk from the University's Department of Chemistry was able to show that silk requires at least 10 times less energy than common plastics, or polymers, to form fibres.

Chris Holland, of the University of Oxford, said: "Silk produced by spiders and silk moths demonstrates combinations of strength and toughness that still outperform their synthetic counterparts. Not only are silks superior to man-made fibres, they are produced at room temperature with just water as a by-product."

"This is in stark contrast to oil-based high performance fibres that require high temperatures and create harmful waste," said Mykhaylyk.

"Whilst these high performance and green credentials of silks are well known, the spider and silkworm can now add one more to the list, energy costs. This is about being inspired by nature to discover and implement things that can help mankind to weather the upcoming storms on our quality of life.

"It means that if we will be able to develop a synthetic route that nature came up with then we could reduce cost of processing in some cases by 10 times, at least. This direction will require development of new systems and processing conditions."

The University of Sheffield developed the method, called shear-induced polarized light imaging (SIPLI) to look at changes in the makeup of materials. Researches from both universities then measured how much energy was needed to initiate the formation of fibres from natural silk and synthetic materials.

The Sheffield-Oxford team was able to demonstrate that the production of fibres from the synthetic material was dependent the amount of spinning, while the silk was dependent on the speed of the spinning.

"It is difficult to estimate how much money could be saved," added Mykhaylyk. "The important point of this study is not money but the intellectual advances and fundamental understanding that can be achieved when two normally separate disciplines interact as closely as we did."

The research, which has taken more than two years to complete, was part of a group of projects dedicated to Novel Polymers for Soft Nanotechnology matter and was funded by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Magdalen College, the European Research Council and the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

s: The research was carried out by Chris Holland , Fritz Vollrath , Anthony J. Ryan, and Oleksandr O. Mykhaylyk, Silk and Synthetic Polymers: Reconciling 100 Degrees of Separation. Advanced Materials, 2011; DOI:10.1002/adma.201103664.