To Awesome man: yeah, we found a research paper that listed specific proteins. however, I have emailed one of the scientists that pioneered web viral engineering. That's not a joke.
http://www.livescience.com/3720-real-spider-man.html That is the guy I emailed. He told me that webbing is such a unique polymer that no one scientist could comprehend it.
To Wadaltmon: I think that would be pretty cool. You can do an experiment that turns sugar into pure carbon. Actually, there are a lot of experiments that do that, but there is one in particular that could work for our purposes.
Back to business. When I first started this, I used to believe in a false assumption about polymers. I used to believe that they were more like colloidal suspensions that were cross-linked. that is not how it really works though. Let's give an example:
Nylon6,10 is the coolest of the nylons because it is so easy to make. Here are a few links to get acquainted:
http://www.polymerprocessing.com/polymers/PA610.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexamethylene_diamine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sebacoyl_chloride
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRnDGjzCzfs
So this is the easiest nylon to create. I feel the video explained it well. But, if you notice, it took the nitrogen bonds from the Hexamethylene diamine, and sort of bonded with the sebacoyl chloride. It eventually kicked out the chlorine atoms and a few hydrogens to become hydrochloric acid. The reason for nylon's strength is it's carbon backbone.
The same can be said about polyethylene and kevlar, though the methods by which to create them are very difficult.
So what we know about the webbing formula so far. It has to have a carbon backbone as well. This can be achieved by using an acid and an amine, or by other methods.
That being said, what the heck is up with cellulose?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose
nanocellulose is so different from rayon, but each has different strength and properties even though they are chemically similar.
Just for the sake of space, I'm going to tell you that basic rayon and nano-cellulose have the same chemical formula. The difference is one is stronger like kevlar. Why?
It's the same reason that it is also shear thinning. It's mostly hydroxide atoms.
Unlike nylon, Kevlar, or polyethylene (the compound in plastic bottles) cellulose is completely organic. As such it has more oxygen and hydrogen in it than nitrogen or aromatic rings. (those are the structures in the pictures.) The difference in strength is how big the structures are because the hydrogen bonds have more power in numbers.
Hydrogen is small, and it doesn't provide super strong chemical bonds. However, if you can get a ton of them together the strength will accumulate quickly.
Rayon, cellulose on large scale, is strong, but will tear easily because it is easy for water to get into the gaps between molecules. Hydroxide loves water.
Nano-cellulose however is tiny, and if you look at the picture of the molecules it is super tiny. It looks very close to graphene, the strongest substance on earth, but it has more hydrogen atoms. That weakens the strength a bit, but because it is so small the hydrogens can all hold hands and remain strong. Here's the beautiful part. If the hydrogens break, they will find others to latch onto. this allows it to have shear properties. In our case, we are lucky because those shearing properties happen to be thixotropic. That's good, because it means when you apply pressure, the hydrogens will come apart and flow until they find other hydrogens. It flows like water instead of syrup.
final good thing about this is that the cellulose, because it is so small, can only be compressed so much before the hydrogens stick together. In english, if you force the gel through a spinneret, it will squeeze the water out and the hydrogens will stick together forming the kevlar strong crystalline form.
So in short, we know that to gain strength, we need a carbon back bone. To gain shear thinning properties, we need hydrogen bonds coupled with hydro-compliant material, and we need an oxygen to anchor the hydrogen to the carbon chain.
there was a lot of material here so feel free to ask questions. this is just for the two most important features: strength and shear thinning. We have not gone into elasticity or adhesion which are the other two properties.
