Ashes are used as additives to strengthen bubble walls using the Hall–Petch effect and, as a result, a larger bubble can be produced in the bubble-spinning process, and it can last for a longer period. The fiber morphology can be easily controlled by the amount of ashes added. Two-dimensional nanobelts can be fabricated when the ashes ratio reaches a certain threshold.

Hall–Petch strengthening has been widely used in materials science, but its mechanism is not very clear yet, some inverse phenomena were observed. This paper gives a fractal approach to explanation of the Hall–Petch effect, revealing the value of the fractal dimensions is the key factor: when it is larger than one, the Hall–Petch effect is predicted; while when it is smaller than one, an inverse Hall–Petch relationship is obtained. The fractal theory can also explain the nano-effort (size effort) in nanotechnology and spider silk’s strength.

Lotus effect is the superhydrophobicity property, and widely used for self-cleaning in modern textile engineering. This paper reveals that the lotus effect is a kind of nanoeffect or size effect in nanotechnology, the surface morphology, solution's molecule weight, and temperature are three main factors affecting the lotus effect. Solutions' pH values or ionic liquids are also discussed in this paper. A series of experiments are carried out to measure contact angles for different solutions/liquids on the lotus surface at different temperature.

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The obtained spider-based nanofiber shows much higher toughness than its polyvinyl alcohol partner. We also find that the spider-based nanofibers have supercontraction and wetting properties similar to those in the spider silks. This paper sheds a new light on a new trend of nanobiomimetics.