We’re peeling back some of the layers of mystery that surround life.
- Stoyan Smoukov
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have developed a simple ‘recipe’ for combining multiple materials with single functions into a single material with multiple functions: movement, recall of movement and sensing – similar to muscles in animals. The materials could be used to make robotics far more efficient by replacing bulky devices with a single, smarter, life-like material. The results are published in the journal Advanced Materials.
The new designer materials integrate the structure of two or more separate functions at the nanoscale, while keeping the individual materials physically separate. The gaps between the individual elements are so small that the final material is uniformly able to perform the functions of its component parts.
The materials are synthesised either in a one-pot reaction, with or without solvents; or through a series of sequential reactions, where the component parts are synthesised separately one by one, and sequentially infiltrated and cross-linked at the nanoscale.
“We’re used to thinking of synthetic materials as structural, rather than functional things,” said Dr Stoyan Smoukov of the University’s Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy, who led the research. “But we’re now entering a new era of multi-functional materials, which could be considered robots themselves, since we can program them to carry out a series of actions independently.”
Read the full story
Image: Pick and mix materials
Credit: Stoyan Smoukov
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
_______________________________________