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Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry

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A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2019) | Viewed by 17758

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Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Stephan E. Wolf

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Guest Editor

Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Institute of Glass and Ceramics, Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg, 91058 Erlangen, Germany
Interests: biomineralization; bioinspired materials design; structure genesis; crystallization and nonclassical crystallization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nature successfully employs inorganic solid-state materials (i.e., biominerals) and hierarchical composites as sensing elements, weapons, tools, or as shelters. Optimized over hundreds of millions of years under evolutionary pressure, these composites are exceptionally adopted to a set of specifications for which and under which they function. Made from mundane materials templated by scaffolds under ambient conditions, the exquisite hierarchical organization of these biominerals often enables multifunctionality. These terrific examples of biogenic materials serve us today as an unfathomable library of brilliant engineering solutions where the interplay between components overall length scales is critical. The hierarchical design—a hall mark of biogenic materials—creates emergent functionality not present in the individual constituents and, moreover, confers a distinctly increased functional density, i.e., less material is needed to provide the same performance. The latter aspect is of special importance in this day and age, as we face global warming and have to reveal new sustainable routes to energy saving and material production.
In this Special Issue, we address recent advancements in our understanding of the synthesis and properties of biogenic materials, along with current developments in our venture to transform our newly gained insights into novel approaches for materials design and synthesis. It is my pleasure to invite you to submit manuscripts for this Special Issue. Full papers, communications, and reviews are all welcome. Representative topics include but are not limited to: self-organization, (non)classical crystallization, biogenic ceramic materials, evolutionary testing and optimization, functionally graded materials and structure-property relationships of biogenic or bioinspired materials, be they of structured, graded, or composite design.

Prof. Dr. Stephan E. Wolf
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Materials is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

bioinspired materials
biomimesis
nonclassical crystallization
structure genesis
emergence

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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13 pages, 3091 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Polymer-Functionalised Nanograins of Mg-Doped Amorphous Calcium Carbonate via a Flow-Chemistry Approach

by Benedikt Demmert, Frank Schinzel, Martina Schüßler, Mihail Mondeshki, Joachim Kaschta, Dirk W. Schubert, Dorrit E. Jacob and Stephan E. Wolf

Materials 2019, 12(11), 1818; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12111818 - 04 Jun 2019

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3481

Abstract

Calcareous biominerals typically feature a hybrid nanogranular structure consisting of calcium carbonate nanograins coated with organic matrices. This nanogranular organisation has a beneficial effect on the functionality of these bioceramics. In this feasibility study, we successfully employed a flow-chemistry approach to precipitate Mg-doped amorphous calcium carbonate particles functionalized by negatively charged polyelectrolytes—either polyacrylates (PAA) or polystyrene sulfonate (PSS). We demonstrate that the rate of Mg incorporation and, thus, the ratio of the Mg dopant to calcium in the precipitated amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC), is flow rate dependent. In the case of the PAA-functionalized Mg-doped ACC, we further observed a weak flow rate dependence concerning the hydration state of the precipitate, which we attribute to incorporated PAA acting as a water sorbent; a behaviour which is not present in experiments with PSS and without a polymer. Thus, polymer-dependent phenomena can affect flow-chemistry approaches, that is, in syntheses of functionally graded materials by layer-deposition processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry)

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9 pages, 1360 KiB

Open AccessCommunication

Conical Nanoindentation Allows Azimuthally Independent Hardness Determination in Geological and Biogenic Minerals

by Corinna F. Böhm, Patrick Feldner, Benoit Merle and Stephan E. Wolf

Materials 2019, 12(10), 1630; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12101630 - 18 May 2019

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2642

Abstract

The remarkable mechanical performance of biominerals often relies on distinct crystallographic textures, which complicate the determination of the nanohardness from indentations with the standard non-rotational-symmetrical Berkovich punch. Due to the anisotropy of the biomineral to be probed, an azimuthal dependence of the hardness arises. This typically increases the standard deviation of the reported hardness values of biominerals and impedes comparison of hardness values across the literature and, as a result, across species. In this paper, we demonstrate that an azimuthally independent nanohardness determination can be achieved by using a conical indenter. It is also found that conical and Berkovich indentations yield slightly different hardness values because they result in different pile-up behaviors and because of technical limitations on the fabrication of perfectly equivalent geometries. For biogenic crystals, this deviation of hardness values between indenters is much lower than the azimuthal variation in non-rotational-symmetrical Berkovich indentations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry)

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11 pages, 1387 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Peptide Controlled Shaping of Biomineralized Tin(II) Oxide into Flower-Like Particles

by Stefan Kilper, Timotheus Jahnke, Katharina Wiegers, Vera Grohe, Zaklina Burghard, Joachim Bill and Dirk Rothenstein

Materials 2019, 12(6), 904; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12060904 - 18 Mar 2019

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2879

Abstract

The size and morphology of metal oxide particles have a large impact on the physicochemical properties of these materials, e.g., the aspect ratio of particles affects their catalytic activity. Bioinspired synthesis routes give the opportunity to control precisely the structure and aspect ratio of the metal oxide particles by bioorganic molecules, such as peptides. This study focusses on the identification of tin(II) oxide (tin monoxide, SnO) binding peptides, and their effect on the synthesis of crystalline SnO microstructures. The phage display technique was used to identify the 7-mer peptide SnBP01 (LPPWKLK), which shows a high binding affinity towards crystalline SnO. It was found that the derivatives of the SnBP01 peptide, varying in peptide length and thus in their interaction, significantly affect the aspect ratio and the size dimension of mineralized SnO particles, resulting in flower-like morphology. Furthermore, the important role of the N-terminal leucine residue in the peptide for the strong organic–inorganic interaction was revealed by FTIR investigations. This bioinspired approach shows a facile procedure for the detailed investigation of peptide-to-metal oxide interactions, as well as an easy method for the controlled synthesis of tin(II) oxide particles with different morphologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry)

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Review

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19 pages, 1771 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Bioinspired Materials: From Living Systems to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry

by Corinna F. Böhm, Joe Harris, Philipp I. Schodder and Stephan E. Wolf

Materials 2019, 12(13), 2117; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12132117 - 01 Jul 2019

Cited by 13 | Viewed by 4218

Abstract

Nature successfully employs inorganic solid-state materials (i.e., biominerals) and hierarchical composites as sensing elements, weapons, tools, and shelters. Optimized over hundreds of millions of years under evolutionary pressure, these materials are exceptionally well adapted to the specifications of the functions that they perform. As such, they serve today as an extensive library of engineering solutions. Key to their design is the interplay between components across length scales. This hierarchical design—a hallmark of biogenic materials—creates emergent functionality not present in the individual constituents and, moreover, confers a distinctly increased functional density, i.e., less material is needed to provide the same performance. The latter aspect is of special importance today, as climate change drives the need for the sustainable and energy-efficient production of materials. Made from mundane materials, these bioceramics act as blueprints for new concepts in the synthesis and morphosynthesis of multifunctional hierarchical materials under mild conditions. In this review, which also may serve as an introductory guide for those entering this field, we demonstrate how the pursuit of studying biomineralization transforms and enlarges our view on solid-state material design and synthesis, and how bioinspiration may allow us to overcome both conceptual and technical boundaries. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry)

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10 pages, 1122 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Composite Materials Design: Biomineralization Proteins and the Guided Assembly and Organization of Biomineral Nanoparticles

by John Spencer Evans

Materials 2019, 12(4), 581; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma12040581 - 15 Feb 2019

Cited by 22 | Viewed by 3946

Abstract

There has been much discussion of the role of proteins in the calcium carbonate biomineralization process, particularly with regard to nucleation, amorphous stabilization/transformation, and polymorph selection. However, there has been little if any discussion of the potential role that proteins might play in another important process: the guided assembly and organization of mineral nanoparticles into higher-ordered structures such as mesocrystals. This review discusses particle attachment theory and recent evidence of mineral-associated proteins forming hydrogels that assemble and organize mineral clusters into crystalline phase. From this discussion we postulate a mechanism by which biomineralization protein hydrogel aggregation assists in mineral nanoparticle assembly and organization within calcium carbonate skeletal elements and discuss potentials ways for harnessing this process in materials design. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bioinspired Materials: From Living System to New Concepts in Materials Chemistry)

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