BioSteel from Nexia
BioSteel? Nexia has developed a system that produces large quantities of spider silk for industrial and medical purposes. The method they use is perhaps one of the most exciting and bizarre technologies I have seen.
It is a well known fact that a spider's web is 5 times stronger than steel, but farming spiders for their silk is impossible. In light of this, Nexia has developed a herd of transgenic goats that have the ability to produce spider web proteins in their milk. A gene from the common garden spider and Golden Orb spider have been added to the DNA of the goats. This gene only effects the mammary glands and milk production in the female goats. The milk looks and tastes normal, but when salt is added, the proteins curdle and fall to the bottom of the tank. These proteins are removed and water is added. The result is a golden syrup that is identical to the web fluid in a spider's body.
Machines have been developed to spin the solution into fibers at about 300 yards per hour, but have not yet completely duplicated the spinning propertied of the spider. As it turns out, the spinning and stretching of the fiber is key to getting the proper protein placement for maximum strength.
The U.S. military is funding research at Nexia to employ their technology in the development of lightweight bullet-proof body armor because the fibers are twice as strong as Kevlar in this application.If mass production is brought into the picture, the goat method doesn't produce product efficiently enough. The solution at that point would probably be transgenetic algae.
Because of Biosteel's ability to absorb energy with a very slow rebound, it is a especially interesting for automotive application. In seats, it could absorb the shock of a collision, but avoid the "trampoline" effect of most other materials. If combined with the right matrix, it could be used in external panels to absorb energy and even return to it's original shape. BioSteel can stretch to 130% of it's length and slowly return to it's original dimension.
