Designing Biomolecular Gels for Applications in Energy and Healthcare

Abstract

newline newlineIn recent years, supramolecular nanoarchitectures fabricated from bioinspired materials are newlinegaining extensive attention due to their unique properties and wide applications in different newlinefields of energy and healthcare. These bio-inspired smart materials generated by classical newlinebiomolecular self-assembly are primarily governed by different non-covalent interactions newlineamong specific building blocks. Such unique strategy of biomolecular assembly can create newlineadvanced functional materials with emergent superior properties. To this direction, natural newlinecarbohydrate-based polymers, like cellulose, glycosaminoglycans, etc. as well as short newlinepeptides or proteins are emerging as unique classes of bioinspired materials that can form newlineadvanced biomolecular matrices and show their potential in different domains: energy as newlinewell as healthcare. Over recent years, cellulose has been recognized as one of the newlinebioinspired, renewable, and sustainable polymers which is emerging as one of the most newlineimportant next-generation materials in the energy domain. To this end, we have developed newlinea facile strategy of synthesizing cellulose nano-fibers from biomass-derived wood pulp by newlineTEMPO-oxidation and incorporated iron oxide nanoparticles to synthesize nanohybrids for newlinethermal insulation applications. Interestingly, in these nanohybrids, functional attributes newlinelike mechanical strength and flammability were improved to a greater extent, which newlineovercomes the limitations of the commercially available thermal insulators in terms of their newlinestability and durability. Most importantly, the nanohybrids demonstrated very low thermal newlineconductivity as low as 0.024 W m -1 K -1 , indicating better insulating potential of these newlinenanohybrids as compared to other conventional insulating materials. Additionally, we have newlinealso functionalized cellulose nano-fiber by fly-ash to make cellulose nanohybrids. This newlinestrategy will offer a dual advantage in transforming waste materials into wealth, which may newlinebe coupled with the potential to serve in the energy sect