Spider Webs Spin Solution to New Adhesive Materials

Spiders spin super-sticky silk in order to capture their prey. Now, though, scientists are taking some inspiration from these strands. They've used it to help create more efficient and stronger commercial and biomedical adhesives that could, in theory, attach tendons to bones or bind fractures.

The synthetic duplicates of the spider silk are based on spiders' "attachment discs." Spiders use these discs in order to attach their webs to surfaces, and are created when the spiders pin down an underlying thread of silk with additional threads.

In this case, the scientists mimicked the design that the spiders use to create a "staple-pin" geometry. More specifically, they used electrospinning, a process in which an electrical charge is used to draw very fine fibers from a liquid; in this case, the researchers used polyurethane. This allowed the researchers to pin down an underlying nyon thread with electrospun fibers.

"This adhesive architecture holds promise for potential applications in the area of adhesion science, particularly in the field of biomedicine where the cost of the materials is a significant constraint," wrote the researchers in a news release.

That's not all this new material could be used for, though. The adhesive structure could also be employed to create commercial adhesive that are stronger than conventional glue or tape. This could greatly help industries that need to employ adhesives.

"Instead of using big globs of glue, for example, we can use this unique and efficient design of threads pinning down a fiber," said Ali Dhinojwala, one of the researchers, in a news release. "The inspiration was right in front of us, in nature."

The findings revealing the importance of biomimicry, the process by which science mimics nature in order to create new machines and materials. A lot can be learned from organisms in nature-especially when it comes to analyzing specific tools that animals use to accomplish amazing feats.

The findings are published in the Journal of Polymer Physics.