CAMBRIDGE (Commodity Online): So, you may not need to bother about the quality of your silk saree any more. Soon synthetic silk will exceed the properties of natural silk.

According to reports, Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists are working to create synthetic materials that duplicate or exceed the properties of natural silk.

Professor Markus Buehler and his team say they have used computer models to determine the molecular and atomic mechanisms responsible for the properties of silk, which is even stronger and less brittle, pound for pound, than steel.

In most engineered materials ... high strength comes with brittleness, Buehler said. “Once ductility (the ability to bend or stretch without breaking) is introduced, materials become weak. But not silk, which has high strength despite being built from inherently weak building blocks.

Buehler said those “building blocks”, the tiny crystals and filaments that join them, are arranged in a structure that resembles a tall stack of pancakes, but with the crystal structures within each pancake alternating in their orientation. That, he said, leads to the outstanding extensibility and strength of spider silk.

The scientists said their findings have implications beyond just understanding silk, possibly leading to a broader class of biological materials, such as wood or plant fibers or even tissue replacement materials.

Buehler and his team -- Sinan Keten, Zhiping Xu and Britni Ihle -- report their work in the journal Nature Materials.
(EUNewsNet.com and OfficialWire)

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