Researchers at Northwestern University have developed a new kind of material that could revolutionize multiple industries by the time it moves into production.
According to a university report shared by ScienceDaily, materials scientists have created "tiny, flexible nano-sized ribbons that can be charged just like a battery to store energy or record digital information." The material is composed of sustainable materials and is biocompatible.
As the material is in development, it could be used in low-power, energy-efficient microscopic memory chips and sensors, or it could be woven into clothing.
"This is a wholly new concept in materials science and soft materials research," said Northwestern's Samuel I. Stupp, who headed the project. "We imagine a future where you could wear a shirt with air conditioning built into it or rely on soft bioactive implants that feel like tissues and are activated wirelessly to improve heart or brain function."
Per the report, the material is made of peptide amphiphiles that are self-assembling structures that form filaments in water. The researchers removed the molecule's lipid tail and replaced it with a miniature molecular segment of plastic known as polyvinylidene fluoride, or PVDF.
PVDF can generate electrical signals when pressed or squeezed, and its polar structure can flip via external voltage. While typical ferroelectric materials require a substantial amount of power to flip their polar structure, this new creation takes substantially less.
"The energy required to flip their poles is the lowest ever reported for multiaxial soft ferroelectrics," Stupp said. "You can imagine how much energy this will save in increasingly energy-hungry times."
Other materials that share these properties are hard materials but contain toxic or potentially rare metals like lead or niobium. The new materials are soft and use PVDF instead.
On top of that, the new material can be biodegraded or reused and doesn't require harmful chemicals or solvents to break it down or prep it for re-use.
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With typical plastic waste remaining a massive problem, taking tens to hundreds of years to break down, scientists have been pushing innovations like these that can help reduce their negative environmental impact.
Elsewhere, Ohio State scientists have found a way to minimize the amount of toxic microplastics shed by PVC, while the University of Waterloo has developed a means to revolutionize how we recycle plastic.
Stupp and his team hope this new material can make a substantial difference.
"We are now considering the use of the new structures in nonconventional applications for ferroelectrics, which include biomedical devices and implants as well as catalytic processes important in renewable energy," Stupp said. "Given the use of peptides in the new materials, they lend themselves to functionalization with biological signals. We are very excited about these new directions."
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