Creating new materials as strong as metal and as flexible as plastic

A group of American scientists has successfully created a new material that is as durable as metal, as transparent as glass and as flexible as plastic, but is completely harmless to the environment.

With the ability to remember shape and self-transform when stimulated by heat, this new liquid crystal material opens up a range of future applications - Photo: Jorge Vidal/Rice University

The work, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on July 22, describes a new biosynthesis process in which bacteria are "instructed" to create cellulose fibers, the purest biological material on the planet. The resulting biomaterial sheets have a tensile strength of up to 553 megapascals, far exceeding that of conventional polymer materials.

New materials from bacteria and synthetic biology

According to the research team led by Professor Muhammad Maksud Rahman (University of Houston), the new material is created from cellulose produced by bacteria, but the difference is that the cellulose fibers are no longer randomly formed but are aligned thanks to a special biological rotating system called a "rotating bioreactor".

“We developed a rotating culture chamber to direct the movement of bacteria as they produce cellulose,” says MASR student Saadi. “Controlling the growth direction significantly increases the strength of the material, while maintaining the softness, transparency, and flexibility of bioplastics.”

Not only is it more durable, the research team also successfully integrated boron nitride nanolayers, helping the material conduct heat three times faster than the control sample, opening up potential applications in the fields of electronics, thermal packaging and energy storage.

Many useful applications

Unlike traditional synthetic plastics that cause micro-pollution and release toxic substances such as BPA and phthalates, the new material is completely biodegradable and can be easily customized for a variety of uses such as packaging, textiles, construction materials, green electronics and batteries.

“This biosynthesis process is like training a team of disciplined bacteria,” Saadi likens. “We guide them in a certain direction, and from there we create a product with the desired properties.”

With the ability to remember shape and self-transform when stimulated by heat, this new liquid crystal material opens up a series of future applications. One of the expected directions of implementation is soft robots, flexible machines that can crawl, slither, and squeeze through narrow gaps without the need for complex mechanical structures.

In medicine, this material can be used to make stents (blood vessel supports) or implantable devices inside the body, which have the ability to expand and change shape according to temperature or biological conditions, helping to minimize invasiveness and increase treatment effectiveness.

They also hold promise for applications in bendable electronics, smart sensors, and self-deploying structures in space.

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MINH HAI

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/tao-ra-vat-lieu-moi-ben-nhu-kim-loai-deo-nhu-nhua-2025072215151939.htm