Spinning fibres like silkworms could cut processing costs and save energy, researchers find
Last updated 12/8/2011 3:12:01 PM
Spinning fibres like silkworms could cut processing costs and save energy
Spinning fibres the way silkworms do in nature could cut processing costs tenfold and reduce the energy used by more than 90 per cent compared to current techniques.
Researchers at the University of Sheffield developed a method to analyse the energy used in the formation of fibres in natural silk and synthetic materials.
It now been used to compare the unspun silk from a silkworm and the materials which make the strongest synthetic fibres available. Dr Oleksandr Mykhaylyk from the University´s Department of Chemistry was able to show that silk requires at least 10 times less energy than common plastics, or polymers, to form fibres.
"Whilst these high performance and green credentials of silks are well known, the spider and silkworm can now add one more to the list, energy costs," said Dr Mykhaylyk. "This is about being inspired by nature to discover and implement things that can help mankind to weather the upcoming storms on our quality of life. It means that if we will be able to develop a synthetic route that nature came up with then we could reduce cost of processing in some cases by 10 times, at least. This direction will require development of new systems and processing conditions."
The University of Sheffield developed the method, called shear-induced polarized light imaging (SIPLI) to look at changes in the makeup of materials. Researches from both universities then measured how much energy was needed to initiate the formation of fibres from natural silk and synthetic materials. The Sheffield-Oxford team was able to demonstrate that the production of fibres from the synthetic material was dependent the amount of spinning, while the silk was dependent on the speed of the spinning.
"It is difficult to estimate how much money could be saved," added Dr Mykhaylyk. "The important point of this study is not money but the intellectual advances and fundamental understanding that can be achieved when two normally separate disciplines interact as closely as we did."