Companies are working on spider silk. Spider silk’s tensile strength is comparable to steel’s. Yet it is lighter, and can be as stretchy as a rubber band. A real spider generates silk in specialized glands in its abdomen, and creates the silk strands using a spinning organ called a spinneret. Some spiders produce up to seven types of silk, each with its own purpose and attributes.

Synthetic spider silk can be used for everything from automobile parts to medical devices to performance outdoor gear, which is the area that’s attracting some of the most attention thus far. A California-based startup called Bolt Threads doesn’t use spiders to make its silk. The main ingredients are genetically modified yeast, water, and sugar. The raw silk is produced through fermentation, much like brewing beer, except instead of the yeast turning the sugar into alcohol, it’s turned into the raw stuff of spider silk.

Bolt Threads spins that into threads using a method similar to the wet-spinning process used to create cellulose-based fibers. It’s molecularly the same as natural spider silk. Unlike silkworm silk, which silkworms produce to make their cocoons, spider silk can’t be farmed in large quantities because spiders are cannibals, and will eat one another in close quarters. The issues holding back manmade spider silk have always been producing it in large quantities and developing the right spinning process.

https://boltthreads.com/