Question

Silk fibroin is a protein produced by spiders and many varieties of other insects. Silk possesses incredible properties, making it ten times stronger as steel, five times stronger as Kevlar (material of bullet proof body vests), and yet twice as elastic as Nylon. Based on your knowledge of the silk structure, how are these exceptional silk properties are achieved? Please explain your answer.

Answer 1

Silk fibre is stronger than steel fibre, because of the following reason :-

1) 1 silk strand is made up of thousand of nano strand, making it more tougher and stronger.

2)Each nanostrand is at least 50 times as long as it is wide and join with the unique and special looping technique.

3) various protein and their folding like primary and secondary structure, show strong bondage with each other and make the fibre stronger with every folding. The main amino acids are alanine and glycine.

4) various other molecules like carbohydrates, lipids and ions hold the structure together contributing to its high strong structure.

Hope it helps you.