Spider silk could help inspire scientists to create stronger biomedical adhesives.
Researchers duplicated the "attachment discs" that spiders use to attach their webs to surfaces, a University of Akron news release reported.
The discs are created when spiders "pin down an underlying thread of silk with additional threads," the news release reported.
The researchers were able to replicate this phenomenon using "electrospun fibers." Electrospinning is a process in which scientists use electrical charges to draw out ultra-thin fibers from liquid. In this experiment the research team used polyurethane.
"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," the authors wrote, the news release reported.
The method could be used to strengthen medical tape and glue.
"Instead of using big globs of glue, for example, we can use this unique and efficient design of threads pinning down a fiber," Ali Dhinojwala, UA's H.A. Morton professor of polymer science and lead researcher on the project, said in the news release. "The inspiration was right in front of us, in nature."
"You can learn a lot of science from nature," Dharamdeep Jain, a graduate student and co-author of the paper, said in the news release.
This is not the first time the researchers have gotten new ideas from spider silk.
Dhinojwala and former graduate student Vasav Sahni worked together to learn about the incredible substance.
Last year Todd Blackledge, Leuchtag Endowed Chair and associate professor of biology and integrated bioscience at UA, proposed using spider silk to develop a material that would be "strong as steel and yet flexible as rubber," the news release reported.
The paper, titled "Synthetic Adhesive Attachment Discs Inspired by Spider's Pyriform Silk Architecture," was published in the March 1 edition of Journal of Polymer Physics.
