Bioinspired Robust Mechanical Properties for Advanced Materials

Abstract

Nature is a substantial repository for various kinds of aquatic, terrestrial, and wind‐borne plants and animals adapting extensively to sustain life on earth's different environmental conditions. The organisms or structures of these natural creatures possess extraordinary properties or functionalities through well‐organizing usually weak biopolymers and bioinorganic structures, which provide good examples to emulate their mechanical and structural characteristics in materials innovations and discoveries. This review collectively investigates the studies of the structures and mechanical properties of some representative fauna and flora with robust mechanical properties and the corresponding bioinspired materials with mimicking structures and mechanical properties. By learning from the natural structures with robust mechanical properties, bioinspired materials and composites with superior mechanical performance to the constituent materials have been designed and fabricated. Via this study, there is hope to draw some principles for designing innovative materials with extraordinary properties from existing common materials by learning from nature. It is expected that the understanding of the extraordinary natural mechanical properties and the robust bioinspired materials can provide some insights into the design of novel materials and composites.

Transient regulation of gel properties by chemical reaction networks

“…The studies on the transient assembly of macroscopic gels mediated by CRNs, 28 transient healing ability of kinetically inert gels, 29,44,90,91 and self-reporting via cascade reaction-regulated CL 45,106 are pioneered by our research group, and these contributions have made significant impacts on the fields of damage-reporting and self-healing materials, macroscopic supramolecular assembly, and metastable materials. 1,5,[112][113][114][115][116] Moreover, the CRNs present an opportunity to construct a range of complex functional gels with various excellent features from a single responsive material, expanding the scope of applications of gels. Despite the systematicity and relative maturity of the reported transiently regulated gels designed and developed based on CRNs, many challenges remain and promising applications are yet to be explored (Fig.…”

Organized mineralized cellulose nanostructures for biomedical applications

“…105,106 These hierarchical fracture mechanisms synergistically result in nacre being a tough and hard biological material, although its building blocks consist of only brittle minerals and weak polymers. 107 Additionally, this 2D layered morphology is a photonic structure in the dimension of visible light wavelength that can produce multi-layer light interferences, leading to a view-angle-dependent iridescence or the metallic mirror-like luster of nacre. 7,103 Such an outstanding combination of mechanical and photonic properties of nacre provides tremendous inspiration to construct corresponding biomimetic layered structures.…”

Sliding friction of a pillar array interface: part I

“…There is now a considerable literature on bioinspired contact surfaces. 3,9,14,15,20,[30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] Most bioinspired studies focus on adhesion/friction enhancement for microstructures on one side against a generic smooth or rough surface on the other. 38,39 Shape complementary microstructures on both sides [40][41][42][43][44] of the interface have been relatively less explored.…”