Australian spider's web is so strong it could make bulletproof clothing

The golden orb-weaving spider’s silk could be up to 100 times tougher than synthetic products used today, according to a research paper by University of Sunshine Coast researcher Genevieve Kerr.

Mrs Kerr and a small team of researchers collected spiders from backyards, planted forests and farmlands within a 10-kilometre radius of Buderim between June 2015 and January 2016 and used a stress-testing machine to test the strength of the spider’s silk and the force needed to break it.

“We found that golden orb spiders produce particularly tough silk and the larger spiders from the rainforest, which can grow up to 20 centimetres in diameter, produce the strongest yet thinnest silks,” she said.

“The Australian golden orb’s silk could be used as a baseline for creating synthetic products possibly up to 100 times tougher than those used today.”

Mrs Kerr said the synthetics based on the golden orb’s spider silk could be far tougher than what surgeons used for ligament, reconstruction, skin grafts and sutures, which all have a limited lifespan.

It could also be used for bulletproof clothing and fishing nets.

Although it would be great to be able to farm the spiders to produce more of the super-strong silk Mrs Kerr said that wasn’t possible.

“The natural product is just amazing, but spiders can’t be farmed like a silk worm because the spiders just eat each other,” she said.

Associate professor Joanna Macdonald, who supervised Mrs Kerr, said there had not been a lot of research on the silk of Australian spiders, despite them being one of the largest golden orb spiders worldwide.

“We chose to study it because we thought maybe it would need particularly tough silk to support its weight and to capture enough prey to maintain its size,” she said.

Mrs Kerr said her study showed it would be worthwhile to investigate the molecular structure of the silk and try to replicate it artificially.