Greatly Increased Toughness of Infiltrated Spider Silk
Greatly Increased Toughness of Infiltrated Spider Silk
复制标题
DOI：
10.1126/science.1168162
复制
发表时间：
2009-04-24
期刊：
影响因子：
56.9
通讯作者：
Knez, Mato
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Lee, Seung-Mo;Pippel, Eckhard;Knez, Mato
在自然界中，微量的无机杂质，如金属，被纳入一些生物材料的蛋白质结构中，并导致这些材料的不寻常的机械性能。生产这些仿生新材料的愿望刺激了材料科学家，并尝试了各种方法。相比之下，通过直接将金属掺入内部蛋白质结构来改善生物材料本身的机械性能的研究很少尝试，因为很难开发出一种可以将金属渗透到生物材料中的方法，从而产生金属掺入的蛋白质基质。我们证明，金属可以有意渗透到生物材料的内部蛋白质结构，通过多个脉冲气相渗透与常规用于原子层沉积（ALD）的设备进行。我们将锌（Zn）、钛（Ti）或铝（Al）与来自相应ALD前体的水结合渗透到蜘蛛拖丝中，并观察到所得丝的韧性大大改善。渗透的金属，如铝或钛的存在下进行了验证，通过能量色散X射线（EDX）和核磁共振谱内测量处理的丝绸。这种增强蜘蛛丝韧性的结果可能作为一种更普遍的方法来增强其他生物材料的强度和韧性的模型。
In nature, tiny amounts of inorganic impurities, such as metals, are incorporated in the protein structures of some biomaterials and lead to unusual mechanical properties of those materials. A desire to produce these biomimicking new materials has stimulated materials scientists, and diverse approaches have been attempted. In contrast, research to improve the mechanical properties of biomaterials themselves by direct metal incorporation into inner protein structures has rarely been tried because of the difficulty of developing a method that can infiltrate metals into biomaterials, resulting in a metal-incorporated protein matrix. We demonstrated that metals can be intentionally infiltrated into inner protein structures of biomaterials through multiple pulsed vapor-phase infiltration performed with equipment conventionally used for atomic layer deposition (ALD). We infiltrated zinc (Zn), titanium (Ti), or aluminum (Al), combined with water from corresponding ALD precursors, into spider dragline silks and observed greatly improved toughness of the resulting silks. The presence of the infiltrated metals such as Al or Ti was verified by energy-dispersive x-ray (EDX) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra measured inside the treated silks. This result of enhanced toughness of spider silk could potentially serve as a model for a more general approach to enhance the strength and toughness of other biomaterials.