Silk on a molecular level
Natural silk is a protein fiber. The primary structural protein in silkworm silk is called fibroin.
Fibroin is made from chains of amino acids, particularly glycine, alanine and serine.
These amino acids are arranged in repeating sequences, and the protein chains organize into tightly packed beta-sheet structures held together largely by hydrogen bonding.
In other words, silk is biological.
It is literally built from amino acids.
And that molecular architecture is part of what gives natural silk its beautiful combination of softness, flexibility and strength.
Now Look at “Nano Silk”
This is where things get interesting.
Despite the word silk, Nano Silk is not silkworm silk.
GSP stands for gel-spun polyethylene. In high-performance versions, this is typically ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene, or UHMWPE.
And chemically, polyethylene is almost beautifully simple.
Instead of amino acids, its backbone consists essentially of repeating units of:
–CH₂–CH₂–
Carbon and hydrogen.
Again and again and again, forming extraordinarily long polymer chains.
During gel spinning and drawing, those long molecular chains can become highly aligned. That molecular organization is one of the reasons these incredibly fine synthetic fibers can achieve such impressive strength for their weight.
So when the word “silk” is used to describe a synthetic material, it can be describing the experience of the material—fine, smooth, light and silky—rather than telling you that the material came from a silkworm.
And that’s an important distinction.
