Spider-Spun Electric Silk Changing the Polymer Industry

A common garden spider in Britain is at the cusp of changing the polymer industry.

The Uloborus plumipe spins web that is just nanometers thick, unlike other spider webs which are in the order of micrometers. Just how Uloborus does it was a mystery until two researchers from Oxford University studied captured adult spiders and video-studied the web spinning. They also examined Ulborus's web-producing organs, Discovery News reported.

"Uloborus has unique cribellar glands, amongst the smallest silk glands of any spider, and it's these that yield the ultra-fine 'catching wool' of its prey capture thread. The raw material, silk dope, is funneled through exceptionally narrow and long ducts into tiny spinning nozzles or spigots. Importantly, the silk seems to form only just before it emerges at the uniquely-shaped spigots of this spider," said Dr. Katrin Kronenberger the study's first author, in a news release.

 Researchers found that the spigots measure only 50 nanometers in diameter and the cribellum is unique to the Uloborus. Also, the Ulborus does not produce sticky silk. Instead, the web is made sticky with electrical charge. This is achieved by a combing action that the hind legs of the insect perform as the silk is extracted. When the silk is tugged and puller, it charges, attracting prey.

The fine silk that Uloborus produces can teach the polymer industry about how fibers measuring nanometers can be produced. Thinner fibers can be easily stretched.

"Studying this spider is giving us valuable insights into how it creates nano-scale filaments. If we could reproduce its neat trick of electro-spinning nano-fibers we could pave the way for a highly versatile and efficient new kind of polymer processing technology," the study's second author.