Bioinspired Reductionistic Peptide Engineering for Exceptional Mechanical Properties

Avinash, M. B.; Raut, D. N.; Mishra, Manish Kumar; Ramamurty, Upadrasta; Govindaraju, T.

doi:10.1038/srep16070

Cited by 40 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Before actuating properties of TS crystals can be explored as a platform for conversion of thermal energy to mechanical work, the range of their basic performance capabilities must be established based on commonly accepted performance indices. With exception of several special cases of organic materials with unusually high Young's moduli, organic crystals are generally known to be soft in nature, particularly when compared to metals and alloys. A large contribution to the mechanical properties of organic crystals is governed by intermolecular interactions, which are considerably weaker than the intramolecular (covalent) or metallic bonds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Performance Indices for Dynamic Crystals as Organic Thermal Actuators

Karothu

Halabi

et al. 2020

Advanced Materials

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same basic thermodynamic principles of energy transduction and are collectively referred to as actuators. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] While complex natural biomechanical systems have evolved to aid functions such as dispersal and survival, the artificially manufactured actuators are specifically designed for integration in mechatronic or adaptronic systems that range from miniature devices such as navigation and positioning systems in flying machines, to complex systems that can perform tasks in specific environments, such as humanoid robots and spacecraft. The current applications of actuators are many and diverse; they include sensors, [11,12] artificial muscles, [13] soft robotics, [14] and energy-harvesting materials. [15] Simple or complex actuating motions can be induced by heat, light, electricity, pressure, and moisture, among other stimuli, and can be realized with shape-memory polymers, [16] conductive fibers, [17] liquid crystal elastomers, [18] piezoelectric, [19] magnetostrictive, [20] and electromagnetic materials. [21] The energy supplied to the artificial actuators can vary from fluid pressure or flow in the pneumatics, to current, charge or voltage in the electromagnetic, piezoelectric and magnetostrictive actuators, to heat in shape memory and thermal expansion actuators.The active media in actuators include fluids, hard solids such as metals, and even complex soft matter such as tissuesensembles of cells with similar structure that act together to perform a specific function. While molecular crystals do not immediately appeal as working actuating medium, their dynamic properties have recently transpired as an alternative to other materials and they are thought to hold an untapped potential for miniature, soft actuating devices, quickly shaping up into a new research field, crystal adaptronics. [22,23] Smallscale demonstrations of the usefulness of molecular crystals as microscale devices, including cantilevers, [24,25] ratchets, [26] optical waveguides, [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36] and other "crystal gears" [37] that can move or reshape are occasionally reported for dynamic crystals. Although being very illustrative, these demonstrations have thus far remained limited to a laboratory scale and have not been implemented in actual, functional devices. Some of the obstacles toward wider applications are difficulties with reproducible growth of crystals of predictable size without the use Crystal adaptronics is an emergent materials science discipline at the intersection of solid-state chemistry and mechanical engineering that explores the dynamic nature of mechanically reconfigurable, motile, and explosive crystals. Adaptive molecular crystals bring to materials science a qualitatively new set of properties that associate long-range structural order with softness and mechanical compliance. However, the full potential of this class of materials remains underexplored and they have not been considered as materials of choice in an engineer's toolbox. A set of general performance metric...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Global Performance Indices for Dynamic Crystals as Organic Thermal Actuators

Karothu

Halabi

et al. 2020

Advanced Materials

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“…and SLMs in an Ashby plot of E and strength, s, in Figure 5C. (31,34) Notably, the stiffness and strength of SLMs are comparable or superior to actin, balsa, cancellous bone, skin and plastics, amongst others, and they are comparable to robust structural materials such as silk, collagen, wood and concrete.…”

Section: Mechanical Landscape Of Slmsmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…5A). (31) We also obtained the yield strength, sy (estimated using the relation sy = H/3) of SLMs, which was found to be about 60-800 MPa. (32,33) In Figure 5B, we show the Ashby plot of specific modulus (E/r) and specific strength (sy/r), which indicates that the specific properties of SLMs are comparable to metals and ceramics, due to their low density.…”

Section: Mechanical Landscape Of Slmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Robust Self-Regeneratable Stiff Living Materials

Manjula-Basavanna

Duraj-Thatte

Joshi

2020

Preprint

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Living systems have not only the exemplary capability to fabricate materials (e.g. wood, bone) under ambient conditions but they also consist of living cells that imbue them with properties like growth and self-regeneration. Like a seed that can grow into a sturdy living wood, we wondered: can living cells alone serve as the primary building block to fabricate stiff materials? Here we report the fabrication of stiff living materials (SLMs) produced entirely from microbial cells, without the incorporation of any structural biopolymers (e.g. cellulose, chitin, collagen) or biominerals (e.g. hydroxyapatite, calcium carbonate) that are known to impart stiffness to biological materials. Remarkably, SLMs are also lightweight, strong, resistant to organic solvents and can self-regenerate. This living materials technology can serve as a powerful biomanufacturing platform to design and develop sustainable structural materials, biosensors, self-regulators, self-healing and environment-responsive smart materials.

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“…This imparts considerable elastic flexibility to organic solids with their E being orders of magnitude smaller than those of metals and ceramics [54]. This low stiffness is advantageous when highly flexible materials are required; the best examples for this are the natural fibers like muscle protein titin, spider silk and cytoskeleton micro-tubules [28,30,41,42,55,56]. However, and from a synthetic crystal engineering perspective, ''What are the structural parameters that will impart considerable elasticity to molecular materials?"…”

Section: Elasticitymentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Such knowledge is essential from the scientific point of view as well; an example is stress induced polymorphic phase transitions in APIs during the mechanical operations [23,39,40]. In the context of biomaterials, the importance of mechanical properties is underlined by the recent realization that spider silks, in particular dragline silk, have exceptional combination of extensibility (ductility) and high tensile strength [41,42]. Synthesis of such stiff/hard/tough solids that are also biocompatible requires detailed understanding as to how those properties are connected to the underlying crystal structure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%