Towards High‐Performance Bioinspired Composites

Biological composites have evolved elaborate hierarchical structures to achieve outstanding mechanical properties using weak but readily available building blocks. Combining the underlying design principles of such biological materials with the rich chemistry accessible in synthetic systems may enable the creation of artificial composites with unprecedented properties and functionalities. This bioinspired approach requires identification, understanding, and quantification of natural design principles and their replication in synthetic materials, taking into account the intrinsic properties of the stronger artificial building blocks and the boundary conditions of engineering applications. In this progress report, the scientific and technological questions that have to be addressed to achieve this goal are highlighted, and examples of recent research efforts to tackle them are presented. These include the local characterization of the heterogeneous architecture of biological materials, the investigation of structure–function relationships to help unveil natural design principles, and the development of synthetic processing routes that can potentially be used to implement some of these principles in synthetic materials. The importance of replicating the design principles of biological materials rather than their structure per se is highlighted, and possible directions for further progress in this fascinating, interdisciplinary field are discussed.     

Bioinspired Materials with Self-Adaptable Mechanical Properties

Natural structural materials, such as bone, can autonomously modulate their mechanical properties in response to external loading to prevent failure. These material systems smartly control the addition/removal of material in locations of high/low mechanical stress by utilizing local resources guided by biological signals. On the contrary, synthetic structural materials have unchanging mechanical properties limiting their mechanical performance and service life. Inspired by the mineralization process of bone, a material system that adapts its mechanical properties in response to external mechanical loading is reported. It is found that charges from piezoelectric scaffolds can induce mineralization from surrounding media. It is shown that the material system can adapt to external mechanical loading by inducing mineral deposition in proportion to the magnitude of the stress and the resulting piezoelectric charges. Moreover, the mineralization mechanism allows a simple one-step route for fabricating functionally graded materials by controlling the stress distribution along the scaffold. The findings can pave the way for a new class of self-regenerating materials that reinforce regions of high stress or induce deposition of minerals on the damaged areas from the increase in mechanical stress to prevent/mitigate failure. It is envisioned that the findings can contribute to addressing the current challenges of synthetic materials for load-bearing applications from self-adaptive capabilities.     

Bioinspired Synthesis of Monolithic and Layered Aerogels

Aerogels are the least dense and most porous materials known to man, with potential applications from lightweight superinsulators to smart energy materials. To date their use has been seriously hampered by their synthesis methods, which are laborious and expensive. Taking inspiration from the life cycle of the damselfly, a novel ambient pressure‐drying approach is demonstrated in which instead of employing low‐surface‐tension organic solvents to prevent pore collapse during drying, sodium bicarbonate solution is used to generate pore‐supporting carbon dioxide in situ, significantly reducing energy, time, and cost in aerogel production. The generic applicability of this readily scalable new approach is demonstrated through the production of granules, monoliths, and layered solids with a number of precursor materials.     

Nano/Micro‐Manufacturing of Bioinspired Materials: a Review of Methods to Mimic Natural Structures

Through billions of years of evolution and natural selection, biological systems have developed strategies to achieve advantageous unification between structure and bulk properties. The discovery of these fascinating properties and phenomena has triggered increasing interest in identifying characteristics of biological materials, through modern characterization and modeling techniques. In an effort to produce better engineered materials, scientists and engineers have developed new methods and approaches to construct artificial advanced materials that resemble natural architecture and function. A brief review of typical naturally occurring materials is presented here, with a focus on chemical composition, nano‐structure, and architecture. The critical mechanisms underlying their properties are summarized, with a particular emphasis on the role of material architecture. A review of recent progress on the nano/micro‐manufacturing of bio‐inspired hybrid materials is then presented in detail. In this case, the focus is on nacre and bone‐inspired structural materials, petals and gecko foot‐inspired adhesive films, lotus and mosquito eye inspired superhydrophobic materials, brittlestar and Morpho butterfly‐inspired photonic structured coatings. Finally, some applications, current challenges and future directions with regard to manufacturing bio‐inspired hybrid materials are provided.     

Liquid-Superrepellent Bioinspired Fibrillar Adhesives

Bioinspired elastomeric fibrillar surfaces have significant potential as reversible dry adhesives, but their adhesion performance is sensitive to the presence of liquids at the contact interface. Like their models in nature, many artificial mimics can effectively repel water, but fail when low-surface-tension liquids are introduced at the contact interface. A bioinspired fibrillar adhesive surface that is liquid-superrepellent even toward ultralow-surface-tension liquids while retaining its adhesive properties is proposed herein. This surface combines the effective adhesion principle of mushroom-shaped fibrillar arrays with liquid repellency based on double re-entrant fibril tip geometry. The adhesion performance of the proposed microfibril structures is retained even when low-surface-tension liquids are added to the contact interface. The extreme liquid repellency enables real-world applications of fibrillar adhesives for surfaces covered with water, oil, and other liquids. Moreover, fully elastomeric liquid-superrepellent surfaces are mechanically not brittle, highly robust against physical contact, and highly deformable and stretchable, which can increase the real-world uses of such antiwetting surfaces.     

Bioinspired Photonic Pigments from Colloidal Self‐Assembly

The natural world is a colorful environment. Stunning displays of coloration have evolved throughout nature to optimize camouflage, warning, and communication. The resulting flamboyant visual effects and remarkable dynamic properties, often caused by an intricate structural design at the nano‐ and microscale, continue to inspire scientists to unravel the underlying physics and to recreate the observed effects. Here, the methodologies to create bioinspired photonic pigments using colloidal self‐assembly approaches are considered. The physics governing the interaction of light with structural features and natural examples of structural coloration are briefly introduced. It is then outlined how the self‐assembly of colloidal particles, acting as wavelength‐scale building blocks, can be particularly useful to replicate coloration from nature. Different coloration effects that result from the defined structure of the self‐assembled colloids are introduced and it is highlighted how these optical properties can be translated into photonic pigments by modifications of the assembly processes. The importance of absorbing elements, as well as the role of surface chemistry and wettability to control structural coloration is discussed. Finally, approaches to integrate dynamic control of coloration into such self‐assembled photonic pigments are outlined.     

High‐Performance Hierarchical Black‐Phosphorous‐Based Soft Electrochemical Actuators in Bioinspired Applications

Bioinspired methods allowing artificial actuators to perform controllably are potentially important for various principles and may offer fundamental insight into chemistry and engineering. To date, the main challenges persist regarding the achievement of large deformation in fast response‐time and potential‐engineering applications in which electrode materials and structures limit ion diffusion and accumulation processes. Herein, a novel electrochemical actuator is developed that presents both higher electromechanical performances and biomimetic applications based on hierachically structured covalently bridged black phosphorous/carbon nanotubes. The new actuator demonstrates astonishing actuation properties, including low power consumption/strain (0.04 W cm^?2 %^?1), a large peak‐to‐peak strain (1.67%), a controlled frequency response (0.1–20 Hz), faster strain and stress rates (11.57% s^?1; 28.48 MPa s^?1), high power (29.11 kW m^?3), and energy (8.48 kJ m^?3) densities, and excellent cycling stability (500 000 cycles). More importantly, bioinspired applications such as artificial‐claw, wings‐vibrating, bionic‐flower, and hand actuators have been realized. The key to high performances stems from hierachically structured materials with an ordered lamellar structure, large redox activity, and electrochemical capacitance (321.4 F g^?1) for ions with smooth diffusion and flooding accommodation, which will guide substantial progress of next‐generation electrochemical actuators.     

Aligning Ag Nanowires by a Facile Bioinspired Directional Liquid Transfer: Toward Anisotropic Flexible Conductive Electrodes

Recent years have witnessed the booming development of transparent flexible electrodes (TFEs) for their applications in electronics and optoelectronic devices. Various strategies have thus been developed for preparing TFEs with higher flexibility and conductivity. However, little work has focused on TFEs with anisotropic conductivity. Here, a facile strategy of directional liquid transfer is proposed, guided by a conical fibers array (CFA), based on which silver nanowires (AgNWs) are aligned on a soft poly(ethylene terephthalate) substrate in large scale. After further coating a second thin layer of the conductive polymer poly(3,4‐ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate), a TFE with notable anisotropic conductivity and excellent optical transmittance of 95.2% is prepared. It is proposed that the CFA enables fine control over the receding of the three‐phase contact line during the dewetting process, where AgNWs are guided and aligned by the as‐generated directional stress. Moreover, anisotropic electrochemical deposition is enabled where the Cu nanoparticles deposit only on the oriented AgNWs, leading to a surface with anisotropic wetting behavior. Importantly, the approach enables alignment of AgNWs via multiple directions at one step. It is envisioned that the as‐developed approach will provide an optional approach for simple and low‐cost preparation of TFE with various functions.     

Bioinspired Surfaces with Superwettability for Anti‐Icing and Ice‐Phobic Application: Concept,Mechanism, and Design

Ice accumulation poses a series of severe issues in daily life. Inspired by the nature, superwettability surfaces have attracted great interests from fundamental research to anti‐icing and ice‐phobic applications. Here, recently published literature about the mechanism of ice prevention is reviewed, with a focus on the anti‐icing and ice‐phobic mechanisms, encompassing the behavior of condensate microdrops on the surface, wetting, ice nucleation, and freezing. Then, a detailed account of the innovative fabrication and fundamental research of anti‐icing materials with special wettability is summarized with a focus on recent progresses including low‐surface energy coatings and liquid‐infused layered coatings. Finally, special attention is paid to a discussion about advantages and disadvantages of the technologies, as well as factors that affect the anti‐icing and ice‐phobic efficiency. Outlooks and the challenges for future development of the anti‐icing and ice‐phobic technology are presented and discussed.     

Bioinspired 2D Nanomaterials for Sustainable Applications

The increasing demand for constructing ecological civilization and promoting socially sustainable development has encouraged scientists to develop bioinspired materials with required properties and functions. By bringing science and nature together, plenty of novel materials with extraordinary properties can be created by learning the best from natural species. In combination with the exceptional features of 2D nanomaterials, bioinspired 2D nanomaterials and technologies have delivered significant achievements. Here, the progress over the past decade in bioinspired 2D photonic structures, energy nanomaterials, and superwetting materials, is summarized, together with the challenges and opportunities in developing bioinspired materials for sustainable energy and environmental technologies.     

Bioinspired Graphene‐Based Nanocomposites and Their Application in Flexible Energy Devices

Graphene is the strongest and stiffest material ever identified and the best electrical conductor known to date, making it an ideal candidate for constructing nanocomposites used in flexible energy devices. However, it remains a great challenge to assemble graphene nanosheets into macro‐sized high‐performance nanocomposites in practical applications of flexible energy devices using traditional approaches. Nacre, the gold standard for biomimicry, provides an excellent example and guideline for assembling two‐dimensional nanosheets into high‐performance nanocomposites. This review summarizes recent research on the bioinspired graphene‐based nanocomposites (BGBNs), and discusses different bioinspired assembly strategies for constructing integrated high‐strength and ‐toughness graphene‐based nanocomposites through various synergistic effects. Fundamental properties of graphene‐based nanocomposites, such as strength, toughness, and electrical conductivities, are highlighted. Applications of the BGBNs in flexible energy devices, as well as potential challenges, are addressed. Inspired from the past work done by the community a roadmap for the future of the BGBNs in flexible energy device applications is depicted.