Back Cover: Bioinspired Unidirectional Silk Fibroin–Silver Compound Nanowire Composite Scaffold via Interface‐Mediated In Situ Synthesis (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 40/2019)

Abstract

The silk fibroin matrix obtained from silkworm cocoons was used to fabricate silk fibroin–silver compound nanowire composite scaffolds with a bioinspired unidirectional structure. As S.‐H. Yu, C. He, Y. Lu, et al. report in their Communication on page 14152, both the silk fibroin matrix and the interface of ordered channels play important roles in the nucleation and growth of Ag3PO4 nanowires. An analogue containing Ag2S nanowires displays an efficient solar water evaporation effect and antibacterial activity.

An All‐Natural Wood‐Inspired Aerogel

“…To carry forward its advantages while overcoming the weaknesses, great attention has been poured into the wood‐like materials based on a variety of fire‐resistant building blocks and the scalable bottom‐up methods [3] . The wood‐like aligned channel structure with a diameter of dozens of micrometers endows those materials with unique anisotropic mechanical and thermal properties, which results in their promising performance in applications such as mechanical support, [1f, 4] acoustic insulation, [5] water purification, [6] and heat insulation [1f, 3a, 7] …”

“…[2] To carry forward its advantages while overcoming the weaknesses, great attention has been poured into the wood-like materials based on a variety of fireresistant building blocks and the scalable bottom-up methods. [3] The wood-like aligned channel structure with a diameter of dozens of micrometers endows those materials with unique anisotropic mechanical and thermal properties, which results in their promising performance in applications such as mechanical support, [1f, 4] acoustic insulation, [5] water purification, [6] and heat insulation. [1f, 3a, 7] In recent years, based on the understanding of the wood structure, various wood-like materials with unique physical properties and wide applications have been developed, among which aerogels with excellent thermal insulation are one of the most important research topics.…”