An all-natural bioinspired structural material for plastic replacement.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33144561.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19174-1 and PMC identifier 7642342.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Petroleum-based plastics are useful but they pose a great threat to the environment and human health. It is highly desirable yet challenging to develop sustainable structural materials with excellent mechanical and thermal properties for plastic replacement. Here, inspired by nacre's multiscale architecture, we report a simple and efficient so called "directional deforming assembly" method to manufacture high-performance structural materials with a unique combination of high strength (281 MPa), high toughness (11.5 MPa m<sup>1/2</sup>), high stiffness (20 GPa), low coefficient of thermal expansion (7 × 10<sup>-6</sup> K<sup>-1</sup>) and good thermal stability. Based on all-natural raw materials (cellulose nanofiber and mica microplatelet), the bioinspired structural material possesses better mechanical and thermal properties than petroleum-based plastics, making it a high-performance and eco-friendly alternative structural material to substitute plastics.