Spidey Tek Develops Spider Silk Production Process

Looking to create the strongest material known to man, the Los Angeles-based biotech company Spidey Tek has developed a patented Spider Silk production process that involves the genetic code for the production of spider silk being cloned into specialized microorganisms and placed in a bio-reactor. This patented process creates spider silk proteins, which can be mixed into 3D printing materials like ABS and PLA. Spidey Tek believes that their Real Spider Silk can be used to replace a number of more expensive materials, such carbon fiber, steel, and aluminum. Read more at 3DPrint.com: https://3dprint.com/157103/spidey-te...silk-material/

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Some of his values are off. He cites 4,000 MPa as spider silk strength, but the strongest spider silk fiber, the dragline of the Darwin Bark Spider, isn't much more than 2,000 MPa. I can't imagine him getting even close to that level of strength unless he has extremely thick fibers, multiple fibers, or mixes them with some other stronger materials. I simply don't think it is possible otherwise, especially with the standard "wet spinning" process that they claim to be using on their website. It was likely exaggerated in order to entice investors, though I think he went overboard.


I've looked into them a bit more. It seems to be a company that has only been around for one year. The CEO is Roberto Velozzi, a design engineer who has (according to his LinkedIn) had past experience working with NASA and, more recently, Bayer while researching carbon nanotubes until they were no longer commercially viable and offloaded to another company.


It seems he is still working with high tech materials and focusing a lot on marketing his supercar, the Velozzi. I imagine that this new material will be used in this and other concept cars/drones of his design.

Also, I cannot find any patents for anything that he claims, domestic or international. He claims that it is patented, so maybe it is not yet public? He does own trademarks, though they are classified as plastics or resins. It definitely looks fishy.


I don't doubt that he is using spider silk proteins spun into fibers. CRISPR makes that all to easy nowadays, especially with bacteria. I just think that the strength that they cite (40,000 MPa) has been exaggerated to an extent that makes them sound like they are blatantly trying to mislead people.

the other issue, is that the temperatures plastics melt at will destroy any protein. So you're not going to get spider silk reinforced printer filament any time soon.
I guess you could do it with a powdered jetting setup and either add a layer of spider silk to each layer or mix it in with the liquid binder. As long as it wasn't heat set - could work.
And these days if something could work - someone will work out how to make it work.

basically the only real issue once you can make the silk is using a low temperature printing process.