Hybrid Spider Silk with Inorganic Nanomaterials.

High-performance functional biomaterials are becoming increasingly requested. Numerous natural and artificial polymers have already demonstrated their ability to serve as a basis for bio-composites. Spider silk offers a unique combination of desirable aspects such as biocompatibility, extraordinary mechanical properties, and tunable biodegradability, which are superior to those of most natural and engineered materials.

Recent Advances in Development of Functional Spider Silk-Based Hybrid Materials.

Silkworm silk is mainly known as a luxurious textile. Spider silk is an alternative to silkworm silk fibers and has much more outstanding properties. Silk diversity ensures variation in its application in nature and industry.

Upconversion metal (Zr, Hf, and Ta) oxide aerogels.

A major obstacle in developing upconversion aerogels is the incompatibility of the highly-developed porosity and the crystal structure required for converting light to a shorter wavelength. We propose a novel method for creating a sol-gel procedure for synthesizing metal (Zr, Hf, and Ta) oxide upconverison aerogels uniformly doped with Er3+ and Yb3+ by precisely adjusting the calcination conditions.