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Published online: 24 February 2010 | doi:10.1038/nchina.2010.23

Surface chemistry: Water on the web

Felix Cheung

Introduction

© (2010) Nature

Spider webs do a great job of collecting dewdrops on a misty morning, but the reason for this ability is unknown. Lei Jiang and Yong Zhao at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and co-workers¹ have now shown that the water-collecting ability of spider silk is the result of a unique fibre structure that changes after wetting.

The researchers used scanning electronic microscopy to study the structure of silk produced by the spider Uloborus walckenaerius. All along the silk fibre they found transparent 'puffs' of hydrophilic nanofabrils on which water from surrounding air tends to condense (pictured top).

As more water accumulates, the puffs shrink to opaque bumps called 'spindle-knots'. The randomly aligned nanofabrils in these spindle-knots draw water inwards, forcing small water drops to coalesce into a larger drop (pictured bottom).

Inspired by their finding, the researchers designed and fabricated artificial fibres with the same water-collecting ability as spider silk. They anticipate that their approach will aid the development of functional fibres for use in water collection and filtration systems.

The authors of this work are from:
School of Chemistry and Environment, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China; National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, Beijing, China; Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences (BNLMS), Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Reference

1. Zheng, Y. et al. Directional water collection on wetted spider silk. Nature 463, 640–643 (2010).  | Article | PubMed | OpenURL | | ChemPort |