Biodegradable protein glass made by 3D printing
Glass that can be 3D printed is biodegradable and composed of proteins. The possibility of glass that could disintegrate with biological debris is made possible by chemically altering the ends of the molecules.
https://3dprinting.com/news/3d-printed-amino-acid-glass-can-dissolve-in-the-body/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00826-3
Amino acids and peptides have been altered by researchers, who then managed to manipulate them into translucent glass. According to research released in Science Advances1, scientists have converted amino acids and peptides – the building blocks of proteins – into glass.
The bio molecular glass can be 3D printed and made in moulds and is translucent. According to the study, glass biodegrades fairly rapidly, but it wouldn’t be appropriate for uses like drink bottles because the liquid would speed up the process.
According to Jun Liu, a materials chemist at the University of Washington in Seattle, no one has ever attempted this with nano materials before. It’s a worthwhile finding.
How to make biodegradable amino acid glass
The primary inorganic substance used to make standard glass is silicon dioxide. High temps are used to melt the components, followed by a quick cooling process, a significant quantity of it still winds up in landfills, where it can take thousands of years to decompose.
However, amino acids are easily broken down by microorganisms, so the nutrients in biomolecular glass could, in theory, reenter the environment rather than languishing for years in a dump.
According to Xuhhai Yan, a chemist at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and a co-author of the study, the creation of renewable, safe and biodegradable materials is extremely attractive for a sustainable future.
Peptides, which are long string of amino acids, typically begin to break apart before melting when heated. To alter how amino acids join and prevent them from disintegrating, Yan and his coworkers changed the ends of the amino acids.
Following fast supercooling, which lowers molecules’ freezing points while preserving their liquid state, the researchers quickly melted these changed amino acids.
The material was then further chilled in order to turn it into glass. When it warmed back to ambient temperature, it remained firm. The writers observe that in some instances, the glass was not entirely colourless, but this technique stops the amino acids and peptides from crystallising when they solidify, which would cause the glass to be cloudy.
Depending on the chemical change and amino acid or peptide used, the bio molecular glass took between a few weeks and several months to degrade when the researchers subjected it to digestive sercreions and compost.
At this point, the glass is just a scientific oddity. According to Ting Xu, a materials chemist at the University of California, Berkeley, this research is very basic. She claims that it does offer up a new avenue for investigation for material scientists.
The glass shouldn’t be used in extremely humid or moist settings because it can biodegrade. She hypothesised that because organic molecular interactions are typically weaker than inorganic ones and because of this, peptide glass would be less rigid than regular glass.
She claims that bendable, small devices like the lenses in a microscope might benefit from this feature.
Source: 3D Printing, Nature Journal
