An extreme biomimetic approach: hydrothermal synthesis of β-chitin/ZnO nanostructured composites

Abstract

b-Chitinous scaffolds isolated from the skeleton of marine cephalopod Sepia officinalis were used as a template for the in vitro formation of ZnO under conditions (70 C) which are extreme for biological materials. Novel b-chitin/ZnO film-like composites were prepared for the first time by hydrothermal synthesis, and were thoroughly characterized using numerous analytical methods including Raman spectroscopy, HR-TEM and XRD. We demonstrate the growth of hexagonal ZnO nanocrystals on the b-chitin substrate. Our chitin/ZnO composites presented in this work show antibacterial properties against Gram positive bacteria and can be employed for development of inorganic-organic wound dressing materials.

Renewable chitin from marine sponge as a thermostable biological template for hydrothermal synthesis of hematite nanospheres using principles of extreme biomimetics

“…The thermal stability of chitin under hydrothermal conditions and the presence of various functional groups (-OH and C=O and -NH) in the chitin molecule permit the utilization of this biopolymer in hydrothermal synthesis reactions. Our previously published experimental results showed strong evidence [5][6][7][8][9] that this is a key way to use chitinous matrices of sponge origin as a nanostructured biological scaffold [26][27][28]. A broad variety of reactions related to hydrothermal synthesis can be performed in vitro.…”

“…Recently, we established a new synthetic paradigm termed Extreme Biomimetics [5][6][7][8][9]. This approach, in contrast to traditional biomimetic methods, is carried under extreme (from a biological point of view) conditionsi.e.…”

Poriferan Chitin as a Versatile Template for Extreme Biomimetics

“…Extreme Biomimetics is a newly established scientific direction proposed by our group that is focused on mimicking extreme environments for the development of a new generation of biomaterials and composites [114,137,[159][160][161].…”

Synthesis, structural and optical properties of pure ZnO and Co doped ZnO nanoparticles prepared by the co-precipitation method

“…There are several methods reported in the literature for the synthesis of undoped, doped ZnO NPs and its derivatives which can be categorized into either (Chemical or Physical, co-precipitation, hydrothermal, solvothermal, emulsion and microemulsion methods etc.) [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. Among the various methods, co-precipitation is one of the most important methods to prepare the nanoparticles.…”