To truly understand why KBLB is special, you gotta do a lot of reading. Early on I was quite jittery when I heard of other companies. Through my research I feel kblb silk is more special than it is understood to be.
Early on I did a calculation to determine what kblb's silk strength was. Look at the aol article on kblb/notre dame, and the "wired" article. 2 key things Dr Fraser said. He said they nearly doubled the silkworm silk.........and the thread is 80 percent as strong relative to the nephila clavipes.
Silkworm silk has a range of thread strength though, so .5 GPa is the low end, but might be the reference used. Range is .5 to .7. The nephila clavipes has about 1.2 GPa. "almost doubled" would put our silk easily at .8 GPa, up to around 1-1.1 GPa, read further below to understand how a thread of .8-1.1 GPa is fantastic. I am stunned hardly anyone has focused on this, this is a huge huge huge success, and this is only gen 1. Gen 2 is said to match the native spider......get my point they almost matched it on their early success.
Things you have to look at.
-Target market of the thread.
-Properties of the thread.
-Cost of the thread per unit.
I know of zero companies that possess something called "spider silk", that are actually at this moment targeting the regular silk market. This market alone can make KBLB worth hundreds of millions in market cap or more. Ultimate penetration and uses we must soon find out, which I feel we will.
The biggest factor I look at is the properties of the thread. Some would have you believe that only the 1st spidersilk company in the market will be successful. UMmm what if the first one to market has a thread of .5 GPa per gram, and the 2nd company comes and has 1 GPa per gram, get my point?
Reference point, Most spiders have a thread, with a tensile strength of 1 GPa(gigapascal), regular silk is .5 GPa. The Nephila Clavipes spider is about 1.2+ GPa. When taking those pascal measurements, you have to account for the mass of the thread. And look at pascal strength per gram of mass.
There is yield strength and ultimate tensile strength as well, both are quite different, so don't compare one to the other. Yield strength is when deformation begins, under load, and ultimate tensile strength is of course the max pascal count it can take before the thread breaks.
Back to properties....a product called "spider silk" that has 2 GPa, won't sell to the same manufacturer as a product that has 1 GPa or 3 GPa. This must be looked at per gram of fiber, nexia biotech created spider silk........and it was as strong as spider silk......but was wayyy thicker, so the point of reference was not 1 GPa at 1 gram. A company can claim 10 MPa, but use a thread of large mass to purport those claims. Some manufacterers will want a lot of flexibility, some will not want so much. Some will want as much strength as possible, others will not.
So just as Kevlar didnt take the whole technical textiles market, spider silk of x properties wont. KBLB will need to further improve, and I would say create a silk to meet every purpose, by making threads of vastly different properties, that way a manufacturer can come into the notre dame spider silk candy shop and get exactly the properties they want.
Anyone saying that "our silk is stronger than steel", is a simple minded person, spider silk is about 10X per gram, so not a good direct comparison. Steel has a very very low tensile strength per gram. Nylon about the same tensile strength as steel per gram........
Look at spider silk like hamburgers. There are many different burgers, and all have a share of the market, no one can rule. Mcdonalds needs to go out of business and won't.
Then, look at a huge factor. When looking to go into a business, you look at potential market penetration, and is it worth it to build you business to do something meaningful enough with your product etc. All of the researchers trying to make a transgenic silkworm like we do, are still trying. This means, the market of course is available, and there hasn't been a competitor with an idea or product that keeps them or us from moving forward. I had a business idea, good one actually, but decided the target market was just too cluttered.
Cost is on our side for now, how long that lasts, don't know.
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