Regenerated silk
The complex mix of molecules that makes up fibers of natural silk, nature beats human engineering hands down.
Engineers have found they can make a material that is more than twice as stiff as its natural counterpart and can be shaped into complex structures such as meshes and lattices.
The new material is dubbed regenerated silk fiber (RSF) and could find a host of applications in commercial and biomedical settings, the researchers say.
Natural silk
The team has developed a way to harness the best qualities of natural silk produced by silkworms. While, processing it gets stronger and opens up a wide variety of new shapes and structures that could never form from natural silk.
The key is to break down the natural silk, but not too much. They dissolve the cocoons built by silkworms, not to the point that the material’s molecular structure breaks down but rather into an intermediate form composed of microfibrils.
These tiny, thread-like assemblies preserve some of the important hierarchical structures that give the silk its strength.
Though, silk thread and fabric are expensive. In bulk, unprocessed silkworm cocoons cost only about $5 per kilogram.
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