Carbon nanotubes on a spider silk scaffold

Steven, Eden; Saleh, Wasan R.; Lebedev, Victor; Acquah, Steve F. A.; Laukhin, V. N.; Alamo, Rufina G.; Brooks, J. S.

doi:10.1038/ncomms3435

Cited by 136 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Spider silks can be stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar, yet are much lighter weight than these manmade materials 4 . Silks vary in extensibility 5 , are temperature resilient 6 , can enable electrical conduction 7 , and can inhibit bacterial growth while being nearly invisible to the human immune system 8 . Thus, novel materials derived from spider silks offer tremendous potential for medical and industrial innovation.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Nephila clavipes genome highlights the diversity of spider silk genes and their complex expression

et al. 2017

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More than 380 million years of evolution have produced >46,000 extant spider species, exhibiting an incredible diversity of silks used for prey capture and reproduction [1][2][3] . Spider silks can be stronger than steel and tougher than Kevlar, yet are much lighter weight than these manmade materials 4 . Silks vary in extensibility 5 , are temperature resilient 6 , can enable electrical conduction 7 , and can inhibit bacterial growth while being nearly invisible to the human immune system 8 . Thus, novel materials derived from spider silks offer tremendous potential for medical and industrial innovation. To take advantage of their desirable properties, we must learn more about spider silk genetic structure, functional diversity, and production.A female orb-weaving spider can have up to seven morphologically differentiated types of silk glands, each believed to extrude a distinct class of silk with biophysical characteristics resulting from the expression of a unique combination of silk genes in that gland 9,10 . The silk classes of a typical 'gluey silk' orb-weaver (Araneoidea) female include (i) major ampullate silk, which exhibits great tensile strength and is employed in draglines, bridgelines, and web radii 11,12 ; (ii) minor ampullate silk, used for inelastic temporary spirals during web building 11,12 ; (iii) cement-like piriform silk that bonds fibers together and to other substrates 13,14 ; (iv) strong, yet flexible aciniform silk used for prey wrapping and egg case insulation 15 ; (v) tubuliform and cylindriform silk that constitutes the tough outer layer of egg cases 16,17 ; (vi) flagelliform silk that exhibits unparalleled extensibility and is used in the capture spiral 18,19 ; and (vii) the viscous and sticky aggregate silk that aids in prey capture [20][21][22][23][24] . Many spider species produce just a subset of these silk classes, and some produce yet other silk types, including cribellate silk 25 . Each species possesses an assortment of specialized gland types that are thought to produce distinct classes of silks to fit specific needs 9,26,27 .Spider silks are composed primarily of spidroin proteins (where a 'spidroin' is a spider fibroin [28][29][30][31] ) that, by convention, have been named and classified according to the specific silk gland in which they were first discovered. Spidroin proteins have conserved N-and C-terminal domains that flank long runs of repeated motifs 32-34 , the composition and number of which confer specific physical properties to silks 27 . Yet, despite decades of research on orb-weaver silks, there is incomplete knowledge of all the spidroins within an orb-weaver species.Adding to the sampling of sequences obtained from targeted investigations, the assembly of the velvet spider (Stegodyphus mimosarum) genome yielded 19 spidroins, the largest collection from any single species 27 . Owing to the challenges of assembling arrays of repeats, several of the S. mimosarum spidroin sequences are incomplete, without the sequences encoding N-and C-terminal domains anchored ...

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The Nephila clavipes genome highlights the diversity of spider silk genes and their complex expression

et al. 2017

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such as transistor, [ 5 ] triboelectric, [ 6 ] capacitive, [ 7,8 ] piezoelectric, [9][10][11] and piezoresistive properties.

Piezoresistive pressure sensors, which transform an input force into an electrical signal caused by the change in the resistance, have attracted considerable attentions by virtue of its simplicity and low cost in design and implementation. Most fl exible piezoresistive sensors are prepared by loading conductive nanomaterials (e.g., carbon nanotubes (CNTs), [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] graphene, [29][30][31][32] nanowires, [33][34][35] nanoparticles) onto fl exible substrates (e.g., fi bers, [ 12,13 ] fi lms, [14][15][16][17] opencell foams [ 29 ] ) via a number of processing methods, such as blending, [ 19,20 ] coating, [ 21,29 ] and printing. [ 17 ] Among the different conductive nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes have attracted a considerable amount of att...

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confidence: 99%

Poisson Ratio and Piezoresistive Sensing: A New Route to High‐Performance 3D Flexible and Stretchable Sensors of Multimodal Sensing Capability

Luo

Yang

et al. 2016

Adv Funct Materials

134

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wileyonlinelibrary.comsuch as transistor, [ 5 ] triboelectric, [ 6 ] capacitive, [ 7,8 ] piezoelectric, [9][10][11] and piezoresistive properties.Piezoresistive pressure sensors, which transform an input force into an electrical signal caused by the change in the resistance, have attracted considerable attentions by virtue of its simplicity and low cost in design and implementation. Most fl exible piezoresistive sensors are prepared by loading conductive nanomaterials (e.g., carbon nanotubes (CNTs), [12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28] graphene, [29][30][31][32] nanowires, [33][34][35] nanoparticles) onto fl exible substrates (e.g., fi bers, [ 12,13 ] fi lms, [14][15][16][17] opencell foams [ 29 ] ) via a number of processing methods, such as blending, [ 19,20 ] coating, [ 21,29 ] and printing. [ 17 ] Among the different conductive nanomaterials, carbon nanotubes have attracted a considerable amount of attention due to their remarkably high piezoresistive sensitivity. [ 36,37 ] In addition to the nanomaterials, which are the active sensing elements, the properties of the substrates also play a key role in determining the overall sensor performance. [ 27,28 ] Most studies on the effects of the substrates focus on the modulus, and it has been suggested that porous substrates with reduced elastic modulus result in increased sensing properties. [ 19 ] Yet from the classical mechanics point of view, the other most fundamental property that dictates the elastic properties is the Poisson ratio, which is defi ned as the ratio of the lateral contractile strain to the longitudinal tensile strain for a material undergoing tension in the longitudinal direction. Collectively, they defi ne the elastic properties and deformation characteristics of the materials in a 3D space. Conceivably, the Poisson ratio would impact the sensing performance of piezoresistive sensors; however, this effect has not been studied.Classical mechanics predicts that for isotropic materials, the Poisson ratio lies between -1 and 0.5, a fairly small range. [ 38 ] With a few exceptions such as α-cristobalite, [ 39 ] certain cubic metal, [ 40 ] and few biological tissues, [ 41 ] the range of Poisson ratio of almost all natural or synthetic materials is even smaller, typically 0.3-0.5. [ 42 ] Research on fabrication of auxetic materials or materials with negative Poisson ratios has progressed steadily since the initial report by Lakes [ 43 ] on the possibility of such materials. [ 44,45 ] The performance of fl exible and stretchable sensors relies on the optimization of both the fl exible substrate and the sensing element, and their synergistic interactions. Herein, a novel strategy is reported for cost-effective and scalable manufacturing of a new class of porous materials as 3D fl exible and stretchable piezoresistive sensors, by assembling carbon nanotubes onto porous substrates of tunable Poisson ratios. It is shown that the piezoresistive sensitivity of the sensors increases as the substrate's Poisson's ratio decrease...

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“…The effective properties of the ultralight cellular materials are defined both by their cell geometry (that is, the spatial configuration of voids and the solid) and the properties of the solid constituents (for example, strength, continuity and so on) [9][10][11] . In natural structures, it has been demonstrated that introducing a continuous fibrous structure can substantially improve material utilization and the resultant properties [12][13][14] . For instance, spider webs possess a relative density similar to that of ultralight aerogels but are clearly structurally robust 15 .…”

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Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality

et al. 2014

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Three-dimensional nanofibrous aerogels (NFAs) that are both highly compressible and resilient would have broad technological implications for areas ranging from electrical devices and bioengineering to damping materials; however, creating such NFAs has proven extremely challenging. Here we report a novel strategy to create fibrous, isotropically bonded elastic reconstructed (FIBER) NFAs with a hierarchical cellular structure and superelasticity by combining electrospun nanofibres and the fibrous freeze-shaping technique. Our approach causes the intrinsically lamellar deposited electrospun nanofibres to assemble into elastic bulk aerogels with tunable densities and desirable shapes on a large scale. The resulting FIBER NFAs exhibit densities of 40.12 mg cm À 3 , rapid recovery from deformation, efficient energy absorption and multifunctionality in terms of the combination of thermal insulation, sound absorption, emulsion separation and elasticity-responsive electric conduction. The successful synthesis of such fascinating materials may provide new insights into the design and development of multifunctional NFAs for various applications.

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Carbon nanotubes on a spider silk scaffold

Cited by 136 publications

References 35 publications

The Nephila clavipes genome highlights the diversity of spider silk genes and their complex expression

The Nephila clavipes genome highlights the diversity of spider silk genes and their complex expression

Poisson Ratio and Piezoresistive Sensing: A New Route to High‐Performance 3D Flexible and Stretchable Sensors of Multimodal Sensing Capability

Ultralight nanofibre-assembled cellular aerogels with superelasticity and multifunctionality

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