Scientists have created a real-life version of Spider-Man’s web slinging fluid.
The liquid, made by silk fibre, can be shot out of a device then solidifies making a string so strong it can stick to and lift objects more than 80 times its weight. As well as fighting crime boffins think the web-slinging invention will have a multitude of day to day uses.
Professor Marco Lo Presti, of Tufts University, said inspiration for the invention came from the Marvel superhero. He said: “Rather than presenting this work as a bio-inspired material, it’s really a superhero-inspired material.
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“Spiders usually spin the silk out of their gland, physically contact a surface, and draw out the lines to construct their webs. We are demonstrating a way to shoot a fibre from a device, then adhere to and pick up an object from a distance.”
(Image: Anadolu via Getty Images)
Like Spider-Man getting his superhuman powers from an accident in a laboratory the new material was inspired by a similar lab mishap.
Prof Lo Presti, author of a paper on the research in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, said: “I was working on a project making extremely strong adhesives using silk fibroin and while I was cleaning my glassware with acetone, I noticed a web-like material forming on the bottom of the glass.”
But the gel took hours to solidify not instantly so the team added dopamine to the mix to make it set. By adding it, the fluid solidified almost instantaneously. Researchers then created a needle containing two holes down which the silk and dopamine in one and acetone in the other.
(Image: Marco Lo Presti/Tufts University/Cover Images)
A thin stream of silk shot out to be surrounded by acetone which solidified which then evaporates leaving behind a web like fibre firmly attached to whichever object it was initially aimed at.
The web-shooter may not be able to hold up a runaway train or falling bridge but it can pick up smaller objects including a scalpel partially buried in sand and a 5g wood block from about 12 centimetres away.
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