Journal
ADVANCED MATERIALS
Volume 31, Issue 48, Pages -Publisher
WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201904311
Keywords
pseudoprotein polymers; spider silk; supertough
Categories
Funding
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [51673162]
- Hong Kong General Research Fund [15201719, 152098/15E]
- Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee [PolyU 5158/13E]
- Hong Kong Scholars Program [XJ2016052]
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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, not to mention the high scaling-up requirements because of the extremely low productivity and high cost levels. Here, a facile spider-silk-mimicking strategy is first reported for preparing scalable supertough fibers using the chemical synthesis route. Supertoughness (approximate to 387 MJ m(-3)), more than twice the reported value of common spider dragline silk and comparable to the value of the toughest spider silk, the aciniform silk of Argiope trifasciata, is achieved by introducing beta-sheet crystals and alpha-helical peptides simultaneously in a pseudoprotein polymer. The process opens up a very promising avenue for obtaining excellent spider fibers.
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