Spider webs – often seen hanging around even the busiest doorways and stairwells – have a notorious stickiness that is characteristic to it. Although it take a second to knock down the web, the real exercise in frustration is shaking it off. Now, scientists are working on ways to use the lingering tackiness of spider webs in developing smart synthetic adhesives that show great results even in highly humid conditions.

Spider webs have adapted to different weather conditions by effectively trapping insects even in moisture and high humidity. This is their key differentiating factor from synthetic glues that often lose stickiness in moisture. Scientists are now examining glues used by spiders to coat their strands of silk. Salts that bind water and change the viscosity and stickiness, are key ingredients of these glues.

Ali Dhinojwala and Gaurav Amarpuri, scientists at the University of Akron in Ohio, examined the changes in spider glue viscosity and stickiness with the changes in humidity. Five high-speed videos of different spider web glues were shot as they cleared off from a surface under different levels of moisture to understand the role of humidity in spider web adherence and gooeyness. In the humidity levels that were optimal to the species being examined, the viscosity was ideal and stickiness maximum.

Researchers have said that salts being the key moisture controlling agents, can be added to synthetic adhesives to for lasting clinginess even in highly humid conditions.

Earlier in 2010, Dhinojwala had found the material consistency in spider web glues to be “like chewing gum.” He pointed out the loss of stickiness in the material due to lack of moisture. “Unlike scotch tape, which isn't sticky anymore once you put water on it, this glue needs water to be sticky,” he told LiveScience.

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Source: YouTube.com/American Chemical Society

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