Designing novel multifunctional materials from natural resources
Nature provides an endless source of inspiration for building new synthetic materials. The need for solutions to respond to the ever-increasing set of technical, economic, and ecological demands of our society has urged the scientific community to seek more reliable, efficient, recyclable, environmentally friendly, and less energy-consuming materials. Natural materials combine unique features, such as sophistication, miniaturization, hybridization, complex behavior, emergence, hierarchical structure, resistance, and adaptability. The use of biomimetic and bioinspired strategies for the design of innovative multifunctional materials and systems is rapidly expanding and is, with no doubt, one of the most attractive and promising scientific and technological challenges of the field of advanced technology.
Some interesting uses for natural-based materials (e.g. Bombyx mori silk) in quite distinct applications, such as electrochromic devices (smart windows), lithium batteries, fuel cells, coatings or biomedical devices, will be presented in this talk.
Acknowledgments: FCT (SFRH/BPD/87759/2012); LUMECD (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016884, UniRCell (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-016422) and PorPlantSurf (POCI-01-0145-FEDER-029785) projects.
