Silk Sense: Manufacturing Biosilks as Common Use Textiles

Microplastics are a major source of plastic pollution, which contributes to the vast amounts of plastic found in oceans. The accumulation of plastic in oceans has detrimental effects on seabirds and marine animals as they can easily ingest these materials or become entangled in them. Not only this, microplastics have recently been discovered in the human bloodstream. While we know that microplastics are increasingly being found in living organisms, we don’t know the long-term effects these materials may cause. By designing a biodegradable protein-based fiber, Silk Sense can help reduce the detrimental effects that microplastics may cause.

Currently, silk protein-based textiles are primarily used in luxury products and therefore, are not commonly found in everyday clothing products. Because of this, making the switch between plastic textiles and spider silk-based textiles is difficult as plastic textiles are a much cheaper alternative. Silk Sense is working to reduce the cost of this unique material, in hopes that by doing so, the material becomes more widely used.

Silk Sense is determined to increase the accessibility of spider silk protein textiles, in hopes of reducing microplastic pollution. Although the use of spider silk in textile materials has long been of interest to many companies and researchers, many only create this product in lab settings. Few companies have worked to design an upscaled plant for the mass production of this product. While few companies have successfully created a spider silk protein-based textile, this product is not commercially available and is commonly used inexpensive luxury products. At Silk Sense, we’ve worked to create a feasible design that helps make this product one step further to being accessible on a large scale.

In terms of the product itself, our product is a high purity, strong tensile material which provides a biodegradable, renewable alternative to currently used plastic textiles. By implementing this material into clothing, Silk Sense can progressively help the world reduce its reliance on plastic materials.

Although the term ‘silk’ may not sound like a strong alternative to plastic textiles, spider silk has actually shown strong mechanical properties such as elasticity and tensile strength. Additionally, these mechanical properties have shown to be stronger than those in currently used plastics such as nylon and kevlar, making silk proteins a highly effective alternative.

Along with this, Silk Sense has designed a process that creates a silk protein fiber of 87% purity. By achieving this purity, Silk Sense can ensure the strong mechanical properties mentioned above are maintained in our final material.

The four major units of the designed plant were individually validated using a combination of literature, engineering calculations, and simulations. For more information on the validation of each unit, see the individual unit tabs.

Our plant design is economically feasible, which is reflected in the rate of return of 6.06% and a payout period of 14.3%. Various changes in the unit designs and material expenses were closely examined to improve the economics in the initial state of our design. The initial design of the plant required significant use of raw materials, in which alternative designs for the microbe growth and purification unit were used to reduce expenses. In the fiber spinning unit, the geometric design of the spinneret was optimized to accommodate the highest velocity it can take while retaining the shear needed to make the material durable and spin continuously. Increasing the output velocity of the spinneret enabled our plant design to raise production, which effectively increased our revenue as well.