High-Strength Spider Silk Composite Fibers with Photocatalytic Functionality

The dragline silk of the giant wood spider (Nephila pilipes) was utilized to develop titanium dioxide (TiO₂)/spider silk composite fibers for photocatalytic applications. The surface of the silk fibers was modified with TiO₂ nanoparticles using hydrothermal method. The reaction procedure was optimized in order to obtain TiO₂ nanoparticles well-attached on the surface of silk fibers without damaging their integrity. The developed spider silk composite fibers remain the high mechanical strength (0.9 GPa) and fracture strain of 20%. The methylene blue dye served as a model to evaluate the photocatalytic performance of the developed composite fibers. The experimental results show that the TiO2/spider silk composite fibers have great ability to degrade the methylene blue and also exhibited appreciable reusability. This study demonstrated the feasibility of using sustainable and mechanically robust spider silk fibers to obtain TiO₂ composite fibers for use in photocatalytic applications.