New Secrets of Spider Silk: Exceptionally High Thermal Conductivity and Its Abnormal Change under Stretching

Huang, Xiaopeng; Liu, Guoqing; Wang, Xinwei

doi:10.1002/adma.201104668

Cited by 164 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…Thus cocoon membrane has an intrinsic temperature controlling system to offer a physiological temperature regime inside the cocoon. A thermoregulatory mechanism in hornet silk, hornet's nest, and in the cocoon of Bombyx mori was proposed earlier [9,20,21,28]. Our results are supporting the earlier finding.…”

Section: Thermoregulationsupporting

confidence: 91%

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Carbondioxide Gating in Silk Cocoon

Roy¹,

Meena²,

Kusurkar³

et al. 2012

Biointerphases

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Silk is the generic name given to the fibrous proteins spun by a number of arthropods. During metamorphosis, the larva of the silk producing arthropods excrete silk-fiber from its mouth and spun it around the body to form a protective structure called cocoon. An adult moth emerges out from the cocoon after the dormant phase (pupal phase) varying from 2 weeks to 9 months. It is intriguing how CO 2 /O 2 and ambient temperature are regulated inside the cocoon during the development of the pupa. Here we show that the cocoon membrane is asymmetric, it allows preferential gating of CO 2 from inside to outside and it regulates a physiological temperature inside the cocoon irrespective of the surrounding environment temperature. We demonstrate that under simulating CO 2 rich external environment, the CO 2 does not diffuse inside the cocoon. Whereas, when CO 2 was injected inside the cocoon, it diffuses out in 20 s, indicating gating of CO 2 from inside to outside the membrane. Removal of the calcium oxalate hydrate crystals which are naturally present on the outer surface of the cocoon affected the complete blockade of CO 2 flow from outside to inside suggesting its role to trap most of the CO 2 as hydrogen bonded bicarbonate on the surface. The weaved silk of the cocoon worked as the second barrier to prevent residual CO 2 passage. Furthermore, we show that under two extreme natural temperature regime of 5 and 50°C, a temperature of 25 and 34°C respectively were maintained inside the cocoons. Our results demonstrate, how CO 2 gating and thermoregulation helps in maintaining an ambient atmosphere inside the cocoon for the growth of pupa. Such natural architectural control of gas and temperature regulation could be helpful in developing energy saving structures and gas filters.

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Section: Thermoregulationsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Literature remain almost silent on the issue of such directional gaseous flow across the cocoon membrane [19]. Though temperature regulation studies have been attempted [9,20,21]. Therefore it is of great interest to understand this important feature of cocoon which impart a conducive environment for the survival of the pupa.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbondioxide Gating in Silk Cocoon

Roy¹,

Meena²,

Kusurkar³

et al. 2012

Biointerphases

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“…Another recent discovery is that an individual micrometer-size spider silk fiber has an exceptionally high thermal conductivity up to 416 W/mK due to the highly oriented polymer chains in silk fibers. 7 Both the chain length and monomer type of polymer chains could affect the thermal conductivity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Length-dependent thermal conductivity of single extended polymer chains

2012

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The low thermal conductivity of polymers will be one of the major roadblocks for the polymerbased microelectronics and macroelectronics due to the limited heat spreading capability. Despite that the thermal conductivity of bulk polymers is usually low, a single extended polymer chain could have very high thermal conductivity. In this paper, we present atomistic simulation studies on the phonon transport in single extended polymer chains of various polymers as a function of polymer chain length.

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“…One example is the conflicting recent works suggesting that N. clavipes dragline silk may 139 or may not 140 possess a remarkably high thermal conductivity, on par with copper. Atomistic simulations suggest that, in particular, the b-sheets have an unexpectedly high thermal conductivity related to their inter-strand hydrogen bonding.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

With great structure comes great functionality: Understanding and emulating spider silk

et al. 2014

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The overarching aim of biomimetic approaches to materials synthesis is to mimic simultaneously the structure and function of a natural material, in such a way that these functional properties can be systematically tailored and optimized. In the case of synthetic spider silk fibers, to date functionalities have largely focused on mechanical properties. A rapidly expanding body of literature documents this work, building on the emerging knowledge of structure-function relationships in native spider silks, and the spinning processes used to create them. Here, we describe some of the benchmark achievements reported until now, with a focus on the last five years. Progress in protein synthesis, notably the expression on full-size spidroins, has driven substantial improvements in synthetic spider silk performance. Spinning technology, however, lags behind and is a major limiting factor in biomimetic production. We also discuss applications for synthetic silk that primarily capitalize on its nonmechanical attributes, and that exploit the remarkable range of structures that can be formed from a synthetic silk feedstock.

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New Secrets of Spider Silk: Exceptionally High Thermal Conductivity and Its Abnormal Change under Stretching

Cited by 164 publications

References 24 publications

Carbondioxide Gating in Silk Cocoon

Carbondioxide Gating in Silk Cocoon

Length-dependent thermal conductivity of single extended polymer chains

With great structure comes great functionality: Understanding and emulating spider silk

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