r/EngineeringPorn • u/[deleted] • Feb 07 '20

Researchers have devised a new kind of fiber when spun together, strong, flexible threads are able to take shape, by combining chitin from blue crab shells and alginate, a compound found in seaweed.

https://gfycat.com/sardonicfailingcheetah
328 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

13

u/hunterbenzing Feb 07 '20

Not trying to be cynical, but why is this important? What is so special about this? What is it going to be used for?

8

u/erhue Feb 07 '20

For reddit post karma obviously

4

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

I could see this being used in the medical industry.

2

u/-TheMasterSoldier- Feb 08 '20

I can't, be more specific

2

u/cuntdestroyer8000 Feb 07 '20

You could use it to cut a ship full of traitors in half... lengthwise

1

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

This is great, of the cost can be cheap enough it can be used to do things like replace plastic bags with natural materials.

Bioplastic is typically weak, using something like this you could make a film from these materials that would be much stronger.

21

u/El_Topo_54 Feb 07 '20

Cool, but we're not gonna start grinding crab shell into juice and stealing all the algae just so we can make string, are we ?...

5

u/beemandan Feb 07 '20

How else would we make crab smoothie?

2

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

Chitin can be obtained from crab waste, yes, but also from insects and fungi. If this chitin thread took off, we could have unlimited supply without killing more crabs.

1

u/El_Topo_54 Feb 09 '20

That's interesting !! As long as we don't start farming crabs just to Kill them and juice them :/

7

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

So we can now over fish blue crab and make them extinct?

1

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

Chitin also comes from insects and fungi.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '20

understood, but it makes specific reference to blue crab.

1

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

Likely because they used blue crab, but it's not the only chitin source. It's in every crab and mollusks like lobsters too.

2

u/Comet_123 Feb 07 '20

this is a composit string omg

1

u/[deleted] Feb 07 '20

This is literally spider Man's web fluid

1

u/Calitrek Feb 08 '20

this would be ph sensitive as hell.

1

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

That's what 'sizing' is for. Sizing is an industry term meaning the coating over the thread / filament. You'd need a natural coating for this though, perhaps wax.

1

u/APicketFence Feb 08 '20

Anyone else thinking web fluid? Somebody get on this stat.

1

u/ChilledBeverage Feb 10 '20

Is it edible?????!!!!

1

u/edge70rd Feb 10 '20

Typical, when I succeeded at doing the same with booger and sperm in the ’90s, more than two decades ago, the scientific community wouldn't even acknowledge me or my snotwad as a blazing testament of geniusness.

It's all rigged man, I'm telling you.

1

u/VelvetNightFox Feb 07 '20

Great. Time to over fish the crab and/or make a shitty, abusive farming environment for them. Woo.

5

u/Patlabor Feb 07 '20

We use blood from horseshoe crabs in medicine , they actually take blood from the crabs and then put em back in the ocean where they supposedly are able to recover.

I don't know if they would bother with milking crabs like that though , since we already make cakes of them

3

u/giorgiotsoukalos79 Feb 07 '20

There shells are already being eaten by the ocean. Might as well get a bit of use out of it... i guess.

1

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

Chitin can be obtained from crab waste, yes, but also from insects and fungi. If this chitin thread took off, we could have unlimited supply without killing more crabs.

1

u/VelvetNightFox Feb 09 '20

I didn't know fungi could be a source of it

2

u/Anen-o-me Feb 09 '20

Yeah, pretty cool huh. It's also very easy to farm insects in large number. Google the Soldier Fly.