Replies to post #186292 on Kraig Biocraft Laboratories Inc (KBLB)

[igotthemojo]

are you talking about pizza?...cause now im hungry

[DimesForShares]

My language was perhaps a little loose, but still captured much of the paper’s meaning.

The material they are working with might be better described as a hydrogel than a sheet. Their intention is to be able to fabricate 3D components out of this hydrogel that are strong. Specifically they are concerned with compressive strength. Concrete has great compressive strength, which is why we use it as the foundation for buildings.

I contrasted this with toughness, the strength that we measure in spider silk. Toughness is measured by stretching a material, finding the point where it exceeds elastic deformation, and also the breaking strength.

The paper reports on compressive strength of their hydrogel matrix. They don’t test the toughness of their material. This helps people to distinguish their efforts from those of KBLB.

The hydrogel is created from alpha-helices and beta-sheets. Both spider silks and regular silks are comprised of both of those materials. Silkworms form the proteins composed of beta-sheets and alpha-helices into thread. The goo people work with the material before it is formed into solid structures, so it is a little closer to the synthetic materials used in the paper.

I don’t think this has much to do with KBLB and hope people got that impression from my quick summary.

[bananarama]

Phenomenal post, GT. I had to read everything several times for it all to sink in. Great job....GO KBLB!

[DimesForShares]

An addendum: I have a vague recollection that Spiber in Sweden is working with films, gels, and coatings in addition to their spun fibers. They are working to manufacture 3D objects out of their goo.

It just seems to be more natural to me than denaturing out silk fibers to get back to the goo state. Feel free to explain where I went off the rails again.

As an aside, I don’t think Bolt or any of the other goo-makers are competition for KBLB at the moment. Bolt seems more interested in their artificial leather at the moment than their silks. You are welcome to a different opinion.

KBLB’s biggest problem is production, followed closely by material cost. Hopefully production will resume shortly. As long as we have buyers, cost is okay. In the long run, a cheaper product under $300/kilo will open up more applications for our silks.

As a reminder, I was pleasantly surprised by our 10-K. It may seem like I do nothing but bash KBLB, but that is not true. I try hard to read between the lines of the PR’s to find out what is going on.