The Blue Economy - Innovation No.7: Silk "vs." Titanium
- vor 12 Jahren
Have you ever wondered how spiders spin their web? Spiders produce silk from amino acids and whenever they need a new web, they simply reprocess old fibers to make an adapted version.
The German scientist Fritz Vollrath and his team at the Department of Zoology at Oxford University found the thread of the golden orb spider to be the strongest, competing with titanium. However farming aggressive spiders is not practical. Since they recycle too much, output is low. So he borrowed the process recipe from the spider to improve the common silk thread from the mulberry worm.
Vollrath's Institute, Oxford Biomaterials went on to spin-out four additional companies making medical devices: sutures, nerve regeneration, bone graft, and cartilage repair.
This innovation competes with mined titanium, saves energy, generates jobs while planting trees and growing top soil. More demand for silk will require more trees planted on arid soil, which is easy to find nearly everywhere.
Visit us at http://www.blueeconomy.de
The German scientist Fritz Vollrath and his team at the Department of Zoology at Oxford University found the thread of the golden orb spider to be the strongest, competing with titanium. However farming aggressive spiders is not practical. Since they recycle too much, output is low. So he borrowed the process recipe from the spider to improve the common silk thread from the mulberry worm.
Vollrath's Institute, Oxford Biomaterials went on to spin-out four additional companies making medical devices: sutures, nerve regeneration, bone graft, and cartilage repair.
This innovation competes with mined titanium, saves energy, generates jobs while planting trees and growing top soil. More demand for silk will require more trees planted on arid soil, which is easy to find nearly everywhere.
Visit us at http://www.blueeconomy.de