Establishing superfine nanofibrils for robust polyelectrolyte artificial spider silk and powerful artificial muscles

Wenqian He; Meilin Wang; Guangkai Mei; Shiyong Liu; Abdul Qadeer Khan; Chao Li; Danyang Feng; Zihao Su; Lili Bao; Ge Wang; Enzhao Liu; Yutian Zhu; Jie Bai; Meifang Zhu; Xiang Zhou; Zunfeng Liu

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47796-2

Establishing superfine nanofibrils for robust polyelectrolyte artificial spider silk and powerful artificial muscles

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 25;15(1):3485. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47796-2.

Authors

Wenqian He¹, Meilin Wang¹, Guangkai Mei¹, Shiyong Liu¹, Abdul Qadeer Khan¹, Chao Li¹, Danyang Feng¹, Zihao Su¹, Lili Bao², Ge Wang¹, Enzhao Liu³, Yutian Zhu⁴, Jie Bai⁵, Meifang Zhu⁶, Xiang Zhou⁷, Zunfeng Liu⁸

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China.
² Department of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China.
³ Tianjin Key Laboratory of Ionic-Molecular Function of Cardiovascular disease, Department of Cardiology, Tianjin Institute of Cardiology, The Second Hospital of Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, 300211, China.
⁴ College of Materials, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, 311121, China.
⁵ Chemical Engineering College, Inner Mongolia University of Technology, Hohhot, 010051, China.
⁶ State Key Laboratory for Modification of Chemical Fibers and Polymer Materials, College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, Shanghai, 201620, China. zhumf@dhu.edu.cn.
⁷ Department of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, 211198, China. zhouxiang@cpu.edu.cn.
⁸ State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology, Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Polymer Materials, College of Chemistry, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300071, China. liuzunfeng@nankai.edu.cn.

Abstract

Spider silk exhibits an excellent combination of high strength and toughness, which originates from the hierarchical self-assembled structure of spidroin during fiber spinning. In this work, superfine nanofibrils are established in polyelectrolyte artificial spider silk by optimizing the flexibility of polymer chains, which exhibits combination of breaking strength and toughness ranging from 1.83 GPa and 238 MJ m^-3 to 0.53 GPa and 700 MJ m^-3, respectively. This is achieved by introducing ions to control the dissociation of polymer chains and evaporation-induced self-assembly under external stress. In addition, the artificial spider silk possesses thermally-driven supercontraction ability. This work provides inspiration for the design of high-performance fiber materials.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Animals
Biomimetic Materials / chemistry
Muscles
Nanofibers* / chemistry
Polyelectrolytes* / chemistry
Silk* / chemistry
Spiders* / chemistry
Tensile Strength

Substances

Silk
Polyelectrolytes