An all-natural bioinspired structural material for plastic replacement

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 m1/2), high stiffness (20 GPa), low coefficient of thermal expansion (7 × 10−6 K−1) 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.

Microplastics release from victuals packaging materials during daily usage

“…The good news is that many biodegradable polymers (eg, bio‐based polymer polylactic acid, microbial synthetic polymer polyhydroxyalkanoates, etc.) and emerging various forms of sustainable bulk materials based on renewable resources (eg, cellulose nanofiber) have been developed, which are potential substitutes for petrochemical‐based plastics 40‐48 . After continuous exploration and development, these sustainable alternatives may be the key to solve the problem of MPs in the future.…”

Nacreous aramid-mica bulk materials with excellent mechanical properties and environmental stability

“…Based on the low density of both the building blocks and the designed hierarchical nacreous structure, the nacreous bulk material achieved a striking trade-off among density, strength and toughness, which is hard to accomplish simultaneously for engineering structural materials and demonstrates impressive superiority compared with previously reported biomimetic bulk materials ( Figures 4 A and 4B) ( Bouville et al., 2014 ; Chen et al., 2018 ; Estili et al., 2012 ; Gao et al., 2017 ; Grossman et al., 2017 ; Guan et al., 2020a , 2020b ; Le Ferrand et al., 2015 ; Libanori et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2013 ; Mao et al., 2016 ; Morits et al., 2017 ; Munch et al., 2008 ; Naglieri et al., 2015 ; Nakagaito et al., 2005 ; Song et al., 2018 ; Yang et al., 2017 ; Zhao et al., 2016 ). As shown in Figure 4 C and Table S2 , the specific strength, (227 MPa/(Mg m −3 )) and specific toughness, (8.4 MPa m 1/2 /(Mg m −3 )) of our nacreous bulk material are both higher than those of the other bulk nacre-mimetics ( Bouville et al., 2014 ; Chen et al., 2018 ; Estili et al., 2012 ; Gao et al., 2017 ; Grossman et al., 2017 ; Guan et al., 2020a ; Le Ferrand et al., 2015 ; Libanori et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2013 ; Mao et al., 2016 ; Morits et al., 2017 ; Munch et al., 2008 ; Naglieri et al., 2015 ) ( Song et al., 2018 ). Notably, both the and of our nacreous bulk material are higher than those of nearly all biological structural materials and most engineering structural materials including high-performance ceramics, metallic alloys and even glass-fiber-reinforced polymers ( Figure 4 D and Table S2 ) ( Bouville et ...…”

Nature-inspired materials: Emerging trends and prospects

“…There are many more processes that continually inspire us to develop artificial systems, such as energy storage inspired by biochemical energy storage 9 , protein production inspired by spider silk production 10 , and selfdegrading plastic inspired by natural decomposition 11 .…”