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Chitosan is a highly versatile and sustainable polymer with a broad range of potential biological and materials engineering applications. Despite its versatility, the native brittleness of chitosan limits its broader utilization. This…
Chitin and protein are two main building blocks for many natural biomaterials. The interaction between chitin and protein critically determines the properties of the composite biological materials. As living organisms usually encounter…
Biological systems evolve with minimum metabolic costs and use common components, and they represent guideposts toward a paradigm of manufacturing that is centered on minimum energy, local resources, and ecological integration. Here, a new…
Soft matter materials, such as polymers, membranes, proteins, are often electrically charged. This makes them water soluble, which is of great importance in technological application and a prerequisite for biological function. We discuss a…
Chitosan and chitin are promising biopolymers used in many areas including biomedical applications, such as tissue engineering and viscosupplementation. Chitosan shares similar properties with hyaluronan, a natural component of synovial…
Water is necessary both for the evolution of life and its continuance. It possesses particular properties that cannot be found in other materials and that are required for life-giving processes. These properties are brought about by the…
Imagine a world where beauty and technology move in perfect harmony, revealing tiny masterpieces hidden in the water. This world is Nature, and diatoms are the stars. Masters of assembling complex hierarchical glass structures, these…
Fluid-structure interactions between active and passive components are important for many biological systems to function. A particular example is chromatin in the cell nucleus, where ATP-powered processes drive coherent motions of the…
Living cells are soft bodies of a characteristic form, but endowed with a capacity for a steady turnover of their structures. Both of these material properties, i.e. recovery of the shape after an external stress has been imposed and…
Additives are essential to enhance or modify the properties of plastics for target applications. However, finding appropriate additives may be challenging, since we lack knowledge on their interactions with the plastics and with moisture,…
The global increase in materials consumption calls for innovative materials, with tailored performance and multi-functionality, that are environmentally sustainable. Composites from renewable resources offer solutions to fulfil these…
Living organisms, ecosystems, and social systems are examples of complex systems in which robustness against inclusion of new elements is an essential feature. A recently proposed simple model has revealed a general mechanism by which such…
High strength and high toughness are usually mutually exclusive in engineering materials. Improving the toughness of strong but brittle materials like ceramics thus relies on the introduction of a metallic or polymeric ductile phase to…
Since their invention, plastics have become ubiquitous in modern societies all around the world, and their impact on the environment has, in recent years, become nearly as well-known. Plastics produced by humans have reached nearly every…
The cells and tissues that make up our body juggle contradictory mechanical demands. It is crucial for their survival to be able to withstand large mechanical loads, but it is equally crucial for them to produce forces and actively change…
The peculiar structuring of liquid water stems from a fine-tuned molecular principle embodying the two different interaction demands of the water molecule: The formation of hydrogen bonds or the compensation for coordination defects. Here…
The escalating plastic waste crisis demands global action, yet mechanical recycling - currently the most prevalent strategy - remains severely underutilized. Only a small fraction of the total plastic waste is recycled in this manner,…
Precipitation strengthening is one of the most effective methods to design alloys with the desired combination of strength and ductility. The main mechanism of strengthening is generally known to be the interaction between dislocations and…
Much of today's sustainability discourse emphasizes efficiency, clean technologies, and smart systems, but largely underestimates fundamental physical constraints relating to energy-matter interactions. These constraints stem from the fact…
Food production needs to increase significantly in 30 years, and water loss from plants may hold one key, especially relevant in a time of climate change. The plant leaf cuticle is the final defence of leaves in drought and at night, and so…