Reconstituted Silk Can Be Several Times Stronger Than The Natural FiberNew research from engineers a

Reconstituted Silk Can Be Several Times Stronger Than The Natural Fiber

New research from engineers at MIT shows that reconstituted silk can be several times stronger than the natural fiber and made in different forms.
When it comes to concocting the complex mix of molecules that makes up fibers of natural silk, nature beats human engineering hands down. Despite efforts to synthesize the material, artificial varieties still cannot match the natural fiber’s strength.
But by starting with silk produced by silkworms, breaking it down chemically, and then reassembling it, 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. The findings are reported in the journal Nature Communications, in a paper by McAfee Professor of Engineering Markus Buehler, postdoc Shengjie Ling, research scientist Zhao Qin, and three others at Tufts University.