In an astounding discovery that squid protein could revolutionise the plastics industry published in Frontiers in Chemistry, this could help halt pollution with no harm coming to the squid population. This protein originated in the ringed teeth of a squids predatory arms and what it could potentially be processed into is nothing short of amazing, it's potentiality was discovered as self healing recyclable fabrics which would reduce the microplastics currently polluting the oceans, smart clothes to monitor health and self healing recyclable fabrics. Eco friendly, biodegradable and sustainable.
Here comes the science;
The newly discovered protein from squid ring teeth (SRT) can be made into synthetic biopolymers that have the elasticity, flexibility and strength of SRT-based materials, as well as their self-healing, optical, and thermal and electrical conducting properties. This can be explained by the variety of molecular arrangements they can adopt, SRT proteins are composed of building blocks arranged in such a way that micro-phase separation occurs. This is a similar situation to oil and water but on a much smaller, nano-scale. The blocks cannot separate completely to produce two distinct layers, so instead molecular-level shapes are created, such as repeating cylindrical blocks, disordered tangles or ordered layers. The shapes formed dictate the property of the material and scientists have experimented with these to produce SRT-based products for a variety of uses as stated in Eurekalert today.
Nature has evolved many functional materials across the animal and plant kingdom with hierarchical structures across the mesoscale and nanoscale that are built from protein building blocks. Many of the
protein-based biological building blocks converged into a same family of structures despite evolving separately (see image).
The recently discovered structural protein from squid ring teeth has presented new opportunities for developing multifunctional films and coatings which may provide an abrasion-resistant coating that reduces microfiber erosion that produces the microplastic pollutants we find in our oceans from everyday routines like washing our clothes. There are also the capabilities shown to be able to be interwoven with other technologies to produce smart clothes that may monitor your health, the possibilities are countless.
Now back to no harm will come to the squid population from this new discovery!
"We don't want to deplete natural squid resources and hence we produce these proteins in genetically modified bacteria. The process is based on fermentation and uses sugar, water, and oxygen to produce biopolymers," explains Demirel, lead author, Pennsylvania State University.
Tandem repeat protein based 2D layered nanocomposites and what they mean, these play an important role for creating composite structures in nature such as mother of pearl. But these proteins have also been recently used for dynamic assembly of 2d layered structures as shown in the image below. The process produced a textile with high electrical conductivity which was also self healing and repairable, it will have the ability to produce electrically superior, energy efficient and mechanically strong materials.
Image; SRT protein films for smart repairable textiles. (a) Natural and synthetic fabrics are coated
with SRT protein. (b) Pre-coating and (c) post-coating images show a homogeneous coating around individual polypropylene fibers. Reproduced with permission (Leberfinger et al., 2018). (d)Multilayer biomolecule encapsulation (enzymes), providing built-in detection and protection against hazardous agents. Self-healing and repairable (e) fabrics and (f) single fiber maintain the activity of encapsulated biomolecules. Reproduced with permission (Gaddes et al., 2016). Copyright 2016 American Chemical Society.
Finally, when will we see this becoming a reality?
Demirel explains, "Scaling up these materials requires additional work. We are now working on the processing technology of these materials so that we can make them available in industrial manufacturing processes."
Research Paper; Pena-Francesch A and Demirel MC (2019) Squid-Inspired Tandem Repeat Proteins: Functional Fibers and Films. Front. Chem. 7:69. doi: 10.3389/fchem.2019.00069
Article originally sourced from Eurekaert.