Tag Archives: bacterial cellulose

Mini T-shirt demonstrates photosynthetic living materials

Caption: A mini T-shirt demonstrates the photosynthetic living materials created in the lab of University Rochester biologist Anne S. Meyer and Delft University of Technology bionanoscientist Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam using 3D printers and a new bioink technique. Credit: University of Rochester photo

I’m not sure how I feel about a t-shirt, regardless of size, made of living biological material but these researchers seem uniformly enthusiastic. From a May 3, 2021 news item on phys.org (Note: A link has been removed),

Living materials, which are made by housing biological cells within a non-living matrix, have gained popularity in recent years as scientists recognize that often the most robust materials are those that mimic nature.

For the first time, an international team of researchers from the University of Rochester [located in New York state, US] and Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands used 3D printers and a novel bioprinting technique to print algae into living, photosynthetic materials that are tough and resilient. The material has a variety of applications in the energy, medical, and fashion sectors. The research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

An April 30, 2021 University of Rochester new release (also on EurekAlert but published May 3, 2021) by Lindsey Valich, which originated the news item, delves further into the topic of living materials,

“Three-dimensional printing is a powerful technology for fabrication of living functional materials that have a huge potential in a wide range of environmental and human-based applications.” says Srikkanth Balasubramanian, a postdoctoral research associate at Delft and the first author of the paper. “We provide the first example of an engineered photosynthetic material that is physically robust enough to be deployed in real-life applications.”

HOW TO BUILD NEW MATERIALS: LIVING AND NONLIVING COMPONENTS

To create the photosynthetic materials, the researchers began with a non-living bacterial cellulose–an organic compound that is produced and excreted by bacteria. Bacterial cellulose has many unique mechanical properties, including its flexibility, toughness, strength, and ability to retain its shape, even when twisted, crushed, or otherwise physically distorted.

The bacterial cellulose is like the paper in a printer, while living microalgae acts as the ink. The researchers used a 3D printer to deposit living algae onto the bacterial cellulose.

The combination of living (microalgae) and nonliving (bacterial cellulose) components resulted in a unique material that has the photosynthetic quality of the algae and the robustness of the bacterial cellulose; the material is tough and resilient while also eco-friendly, biodegradable, and simple and scalable to produce. The plant-like nature of the material means it can use photosynthesis to “feed” itself over periods of many weeks, and it is also able to be regenerated–a small sample of the material can be grown on-site to make more materials.

ARTIFICIAL LEAVES, PHOTOSYNTHETIC SKINS, AND BIO-GARMENTS

The unique characteristics of the material make it an ideal candidate for a variety of applications, including new products such as artificial leaves, photosynthetic skins, or photosynthetic bio-garments.

Artificial leaves are materials that mimic actual leaves in that they use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide–a major driver of climate change–into oxygen and energy, much like leaves during photosynthesis. The leaves store energy in chemical form as sugars, which can then be converted into fuels. Artificial leaves therefore offer a way to produce sustainable energy in places where plants don’t grow well, including outer space colonies. The artificial leaves produced by the researchers at Delft and Rochester are additionally made from eco-friendly materials, in contrast to most artificial leaf technologies currently in production, which are produced using toxic chemical methods.

“For artificial leaves, our materials are like taking the ‘best parts’ of plants–the leaves–which can create sustainable energy, without needing to use resources to produce parts of plants–the stems and the roots–that need resources but don’t produce energy,” says Anne S. Meyer, an associate professor of biology at Rochester. “We are making a material that is only focused on the sustainable production of energy.”

Another application of the material would be photosynthetic skins, which could be used for skin grafts, Meyer says. “The oxygen generated would help to kick-start healing of the damaged area, or it might be able to carry out light-activated wound healing.”

Besides offering sustainable energy and medical treatments, the materials could also change the fashion sector. Bio-garments made from algae would address some of the negative environmental effects of the current textile industry in that they would be high-quality fabrics that would be sustainability produced and completely biodegradable. They would also work to purify the air by removing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis and would not need to be washed as often as conventional garments, reducing water usage.

“Our living materials are promising because they can survive for several days with no water or nutrients access, and the material itself can be used as a seed to grow new living materials,” says Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam, an associate professor of bionanoscience at Delft. “This opens the door to applications in remote areas, even in space, where the material can be seeded on site.”

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Bioprinting of Regenerative Photosynthetic Living Materials by Srikkanth Balasubramanian, Kui Yu, Anne S. Meyer, Elvin Karana, Marie-Eve Aubin-Tam DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/adfm.202011162 First published: 29 April 2021

This paper is open access.

The researchers have provided this artistic impression of 3D printing of living (microalgae) and nonliving materials (bacterial cellulose),

An artist’s illustration demonstrates how 3D printed materials could be applied as durable, living clothing. (Lizah van der Aart illustration)

Use kombucha to produce bacterial cellulose

The combination of the US Army, bacterial cellulose, and kombucha seems a little unusual. However, this January 26, 2021 U.S. Army Research Laboratory news release (also on EurekAlert) provides some clues as to how this combination makes sense,

Kombucha tea, a trendy fermented beverage, inspired researchers to develop a new way to generate tough, functional materials using a mixture of bacteria and yeast similar to the kombucha mother used to ferment tea.

With Army funding, using this mixture, also called a SCOBY, or symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, engineers at MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology] and Imperial College London produced cellulose embedded with enzymes that can perform a variety of functions, such as sensing environmental pollutants and self-healing materials.

The team also showed that they could incorporate yeast directly into the cellulose, creating living materials that could be used to purify water for Soldiers in the field or make smart packaging materials that can detect damage.

“This work provides insights into how synthetic biology approaches can harness the design of biotic-abiotic interfaces with biological organization over multiple length scales,” said Dr. Dawanne Poree, program manager, Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, now known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory. “This is important to the Army as this can lead to new materials with potential applications in microbial fuel cells, sense and respond systems, and self-reporting and self-repairing materials.”

The research, published in Nature Materials was funded by ARO [Army Research Office] and the Army’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies [ISN] at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The U.S. Army established the ISN in 2002 as an interdisciplinary research center devoted to dramatically improving the protection, survivability, and mission capabilities of the Soldier and Soldier-supporting platforms and systems.

“We foresee a future where diverse materials could be grown at home or in local production facilities, using biology rather than resource-intensive centralized manufacturing,” said Timothy Lu, an MIT associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science and of biological engineering.

Researchers produced cellulose embedded with enzymes, creating living materials that could be used to purify water for Soldiers in the field or make smart packaging materials that can detect damage. These fermentation factories, which usually contain one species of bacteria and one or more yeast species, produce ethanol, cellulose, and acetic acid that gives kombucha tea its distinctive flavor.

Most of the wild yeast strains used for fermentation are difficult to genetically modify, so the researchers replaced them with a strain of laboratory yeast called Saccharomyces cerevisiae. They combined the yeast with a type of bacteria called Komagataeibacter rhaeticus that their collaborators at Imperial College London had previously isolated from a kombucha mother. This species can produce large quantities of cellulose.

Because the researchers used a laboratory strain of yeast, they could engineer the cells to do any of the things that lab yeast can do, such as producing enzymes that glow in the dark, or sensing pollutants or pathogens in the environment. The yeast can also be programmed so that they can break down pollutants/pathogens after detecting them, which is highly relevant to Army for chem/bio defense applications.

“Our community believes that living materials could provide the most effective sensing of chem/bio warfare agents, especially those of unknown genetics and chemistry,” said Dr. Jim Burgess ISN program manager for ARO.

The bacteria in the culture produced large-scale quantities of tough cellulose that served as a scaffold. The researchers designed their system so that they can control whether the yeast themselves, or just the enzymes that they produce, are incorporated into the cellulose structure. It takes only a few days to grow the material, and if left long enough, it can thicken to occupy a space as large as a bathtub.

“We think this is a good system that is very cheap and very easy to make in very large quantities,” said MIT graduate student and the paper’s lead author, Tzu-Chieh Tang. To demonstrate the potential of their microbe culture, which they call Syn-SCOBY, the researchers created a material incorporating yeast that senses estradiol, which is sometimes found as an environmental pollutant. In another version, they used a strain of yeast that produces a glowing protein called luciferase when exposed to blue light. These yeasts could be swapped out for other strains that detect other pollutants, metals, or pathogens.

The researchers are now looking into using the Syn-SCOBY system for biomedical or food applications. For example, engineering the yeast cells to produce antimicrobials or proteins that could benefit human health.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Living materials with programmable functionalities grown from engineered microbial co-cultures by Charlie Gilbert, Tzu-Chieh Tang, Wolfgang Ott, Brandon A. Dorr, William M. Shaw, George L. Sun, Timothy K. Lu & Tom Ellis. Nature Materials (2021) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-020-00857-5 Published: 11 January 2021

This paper is behind a paywall.

A nanocomposite biomaterial heart valve from the University of British Columbia (Canada)

I wish the folks at the University of British Columbia (UBC) would include more technical/scientific information in their news releases about research. For those who do like a little more technical information, I included the paper’s abstract at the end of this post.

A March 25, 2019 news item on ScienceDaily trumpets the UBC (Okanagan campus) research,

Researchers at UBC have created the first-ever nanocomposite biomaterial heart-valve developed to reduce or eliminate complications related to heart transplants.

By using a newly developed technique, the researchers were able to build a more durable valve that enables the heart to adapt faster and more seamlessly.

A March 25, 2019 UBC news release (also on EurekAlert) by Patty Wellborn, which originated the news item, gives an accessible description of the ‘new’ valve,

Assistant Professor Hadi Mohammadi runs the Heart Valve Performance Laboratory (HVPL) through UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering. Lead author on the study, he says the newly developed valve is an example of a transcatheter heart valve, a promising new branch of cardiology. These valves are unique because they can be inserted into a patient through small incisions rather than opening a patient’s chest–a procedure that is generally safer and much less invasive.

“Existing transcatheter heart valves are made of animal tissues, most often the pericardium membrane from a cow’s heart, and have had only moderate success to date,” explains Mohammadi. “The problem is that they face significant implantation risks and can lead to coronary obstruction and acute kidney injury.”

The new valve solves that problem by using naturally derived nanocomposites–a material assembled with a variety of very small components–including gels, vinyl and cellulose. The combination of their new material with the non-invasive nature of transcatheter heart valves makes this new design very promising for use with high-risk patients, according to Mohammadi.

“Not only is the material important but the design and construction of our valve means that it lowers stress on the valve by as much as 40 per cent compared to valves currently available,” says Dylan Goode, a graduate researcher at the HVPL. “It is uniquely manufactured in one continuous form, so it gains strength and flexibility to withstand the circulatory complications that can arise following transplantation.”

Working with researchers from Kelowna General Hospital and Western University, the valve will now undergo vigorous testing to perfect its material composition and design. The testing will include human heart simulators and large animal in-vivo studies. If successful, the valve will then proceed to clinical patient testing.

“This has the potential to become the new standard in heart valve replacement and to provide a safer, longer-term solution for many patients.”

The new design was highlighted in a paper published this month in the Journal of Engineering in Medicine with financial support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC] .

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Proposed percutaneous aortic valve prosthesis made of cryogel by Hadi Mohammadi, Dylan Goode, Guy Fradet, Kibret Mequanint. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part H: Journal of Engineering in Medicine, 2019; 095441191983730 DOI: 10.1177/0954411919837302 First Published March 20, 2019

This paper is behind a paywall.

As promised, here’s the abstract,

Transcatheter heart valves are promising for high-risk patients. Generally, their leaflets are made of pericardium stented in a Nitinol basket. Despite their relative success, they are associated with significant complications such as valve migration, implantation risks, stroke, coronary obstruction, myocardial infraction, acute kidney injury (which all are due to the release of detached solid calcific pieces in to the blood stream) and expected issues existing with tissue valves such as leaflet calcification. This study is an attempt to fabricate the first ever polymeric percutaneous valves made of cryogel following the geometry and mechanical properties of porcine aortic valve to address some of the above-mentioned shortcomings. A novel, one-piece, tricuspid percutaneous valve, consisting of leaflets made entirely from the hydrogel, polyvinyl alcohol cryogel reinforced by bacterial cellulose natural nanocomposite, attached to a Nitinol basket was developed and demonstrated. Following the natural geometry of the valve, a novel approach was applied based on the revolution about an axis of a hyperboloid shape. The geometry was modified based on avoiding sharp warpage of leaflets and removal of the central opening orifice area of the valve when valve is fully closed using the finite element analysis. The modified geometry was replaced by a cloud of (control) points and was essentially converted to Bezier surfaces for further adjustment. A cavity mold was then designed and fabricated to form the valve. The fabricated valve was sewn into the Nitinol basket which is covered by Dacron cloth. The models presented in this study merit further development and revisions for both aortic and mitral positions.

So, this new valve partially consists of bacterial cellulose and the design is based on porcine (pig) valves. Cellulose is the most abundant organic material on earth and if it forms part of the nanocomposite, I’d expect to see the word ‘nanocellulose’ mentioned somewhere. What puzzles me is the ‘bacterial cellulose’, a term that is unfamiliar to me. Anyone who cares to clarify the matter for me, please feel free to leave a comment.

Regarding the pig valve, I understand that heart patients who require valves have a choice of a pig valve or a mechanical valve. Apparently, people with porcine valves don’t need to take drugs to counteract rejection amongst other advantages but the valves do have a shorter life span (10 to 15 years) in addition to the other shortcomings mentioned in the abstract.

Assuming I properly understand the abstract, this ‘nanocomposite’ valve could combine the advantages of the mechanical and porcine valves while offering more durability than either one.

Again, should anyone care to increase my understanding of the valves and the advantages of this new one, please do leave a comment.

Soy and cellulose come together for a bionano air filter

A Jan. 18, 2017 news item on Nanowerk describes research into an environmentally friendly air filter from Washington State University,

Washington State University researchers have developed a soy-based air filter that can capture toxic chemicals, such as carbon monoxide and formaldehyde, which current air filters can’t.

The research could lead to better air purifiers, particularly in regions of the world that suffer from very poor air quality. …

Working with researchers from the University of Science and Technology Beijing, the WSU team, including Weihong (Katie) Zhong, professor in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering, and graduate student Hamid Souzandeh, used a pure soy protein along with bacterial cellulose for an all-natural, biodegradable, inexpensive air filter.

Here’s an image the researchers have made available,

Bionano air filter before and after filtration. Courtesy: Washington State University

A Jan. 12, 2017 Washington State University news release by Tilda Hilding, which originated the news item, expands on the theme,

Poor air quality causes health problems worldwide and is a factor in diseases such as asthma, heart disease and lung cancer. Commercial air purifiers aim for removing the small particles that are present in soot, smoke or car exhaust because these damaging particles are inhaled directly into the lungs.

With many sources of pollution in some parts of the world, however, air pollution also can contain a mix of hazardous gaseous molecules, such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, sulfur dioxide and other volatile organic compounds.

Typical air filters, which are usually made of micron-sized fibers of synthetic plastics, physically filter the small particles but aren’t able to chemically capture gaseous molecules. Furthermore, they’re most often made of glass and petroleum products, which leads to secondary pollution, Zhong said.

Soy captures nearly all pollutants

The WSU and Chinese team developed a new kind of air filtering material that uses natural, purified soy protein and bacterial cellulose – an organic compound produced by bacteria. The soy protein and cellulose are cost effective and already used in numerous applications, such as adhesives, plastic products, tissue regeneration materials and wound dressings.

Soy contains a large number of functional chemical groups – it includes 18 types of amino groups. Each of the chemical groups has the potential to capture passing pollution at the molecular level. The researchers used an acrylic acid treatment to disentangle the very rigid soy protein, so that the chemical groups can be more exposed to the pollutants.

The resulting filter was able to remove nearly all of the small particles as well as chemical pollutants, said Zhong.

Filters are economical, biodegradable

Especially in very polluted environments, people might be breathing an unknown mix of pollutants that could prove challenging to purify. But, with its large number of functional groups, the soy protein is able to attract a wide variety of polluting molecules.

“We can take advantage from those chemical groups to grab the toxics in the air,” Zhong said.

The materials are also cost-effective and biodegradable. Soybeans are among the most abundant plants in the world, she added.

Zhong occasionally visits her native China and has personally experienced the heavy pollution in Beijing as sunny skies turn to gray smog within a few days.

“Air pollution is a very serious health issue,” she said. “If we can improve indoor air quality, it would help a lot of people.”

Patents filed on filters, paper towels

In addition to the soy-based filters, the researchers have also developed gelatin- and cellulose-based air filters. They are also applying the filter material on top of low-cost and disposable paper towel to reinforce it and to improve its performance. They have filed patents on the technology and are interested in commercialization opportunities.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Soy protein isolate/bacterial cellulose composite membranes for high efficiency particulate air filtration by Xiaobing Liu, Hamid Souzandeh, Yudong Zheng, Yajie Xie, Wei-Hong Zhong, Cai Wang. Composites Science and Technology Volume 138, 18 January 2017, Pages 124–133         http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compscitech.2016.11.022

This paper is behind a paywall.

Biocompatible cellulose sheaths for implants

Strictly speaking this is not my usual scale which is nano but the topic is of some interest to me so here goes a micro scale story.

It’s well known the body rejects foreign objects no matter how helpful or necessary to our continued existence. A Jan. 19, 2015 news item on Nanowerk describes research into developing more biocompatible implants (Note: A link has been removed),

The human immune system distinguishes between endogenous and foreign bodies. This is highly useful when defending the body against pathogens, but can become a problem if a patient requires an artificial implant like a pacemaker or a heart assist device. In some cases the body responds with an inflammation, and it may even reject the device altogether. Researchers at ETH Zurich [Swiss Federal Institute of Technology] are now introducing a promising method to ameliorate this process –fabricating pre-structured cellulose materials that cover or coat devices with three-dimensional micro-structures and thus make them exceptionally biocompatible (“Surface-Structured Bacterial Cellulose with Guided Assembly-Based Biolithography (GAB)”).

A Jan. 19, 2015 ETH Zurich press written by Angelika Jacobs, which originated the news item, describes the research in more detail,

Researchers had already discovered that cells interact better with rough or structured surfaces than with smooth ones and can cling to them more effectively. However, until now it has not been possible to apply these surface structures to one of the most promising materials in the field of medicine: cellulose produced by bacteria. Bacterial cellulose has received major attention in research in recent years due to the fact that it is durable, adaptable and well tolerated by the human body. For example, practical tests are already being carried out on artificial blood vessels and cartilage made using bacterial cellulose. The versatile material is also an effective option for use as wound dressings.

A research team led by ETH Professor Dimos Poulikakos and Aldo Ferrari at the Laboratory of Thermodynamics in Emerging Technologies, has now succeeded in creating bacterial cellulose with a controlled surface structure. This is produced using a silicon mould with a three-dimensional, optimised geometry (such as a line grid) on a micrometre scale, which is then floated on the surface of a nutrient solution in which the cellulose-producing bacteria grow. The bacteria create a dense network of cellulose strands at the interface between liquid and air. The researchers observed that when the mould was present the bacteria conformed to it, producing a cellulose layer together with a negative replica of the line grid.

Surface structure conveys signals to cells

The line grid also enabled the bacteria to produce an increased number of cellulose strands in approximate alignment with the grid. “In principle, human cells have the ability to identify fibres, such as endogenous collagen, as part of the connective tissue,” explains Aldo Ferrari. The cellulose strands and the grid pattern provide cells with an orientation along predetermined paths that they can sense. “This is of major benefit to wound dressings. Skin cells could grow over a wound more effectively if they moved in accordance with structured cellulose.” The material also has a sort of memory: the structure is even retained when the cellulose is dried for storage purposes and moistened again just before use.

Poulikakos explains that in the production of cellulose surfaces, it is now possible to provide them with a message for the cells that will grow there in the future. “Think of it as a form of Braille.” This enables the right ‘message’ intended for later use to be written on the surface.

Less inflammation due to a structured surface

Such structures serve not only as means of orientation for cells, but also help to minimise the body’s rejection reaction to an artificial implant. In studies using mice, researchers compared smooth and structured cellulose and discovered that the mice with structured cellulose inserted under their skin showed significantly fewer signs of inflammation.

The researchers are now looking to follow up on these initial promising results by testing the material under more complex conditions. They could, for example, structure the cellulose surface of artificial blood vessels in a way that optimises the flow of blood, thereby ensuring that these vessels do not become blocked as easily.

As is often the case these days, there the researchers will be attempting to commercialize this work (from the news release; Note: A link has been removed),

In addition, researchers working with Poulikakos and Ferrari have founded the spin-off Hylomorph to make the method market-ready. “We are planning to apply the structured cellulose as part of the “Zurich Heart” project at the new Wyss Translational Center [founded jointly by ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich; it is not related to the Wyss Institute of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University],” reveals Poulikakos. The aim of this project is to develop artificial cardiac pump devices that help patients with serious heart problems in the period before a heart donor becomes available – they could even be used as a permanent alternative to a donor heart. Although cardiac pumps are already available, the options that they provide have been limited until now as they are not particularly durable and can cause complications. “Our aim is for artificial implants to be accepted by the patient’s body without inflammation or rejection,” explains Ferrari. As part of the Zurich Heart project, the researchers are, in effect, helping to design the packaging and internal coating for the optimised cardiac pumps. The aim is to minimise the number of complications in the future.

Here’s a link to and a citation for the paper,

Surface-Structured Bacterial Cellulose with Guided Assembly-Based Biolithography (GAB) by Simone Bottan, Francesco Robotti, Prageeth Jayathissa, Alicia Hegglin, Nicolas Bahamonde, José A. Heredia-Guerrero, Ilker S. Bayer, Alice Scarpellini, Hannes Merker, Nicole Lindenblatt, Dimos Poulikakos, and Aldo Ferrari. ACS Nano, Article ASAP DOI: 10.1021/nn5036125
Publication Date (Web): December 19, 2014

Copyright © 2014 American Chemical Society

The paper is behind a paywall.

I can’t find a Hylomorph website or one for the Wyss Translational Center (there is a Dec. 12, 2014 ETH media release announcing its existence).

Bacterial cellulose could suck up pollutants from oil spills

Who doesn’t love a cellulose story, especially when it could involve cleaning up oil spills? The Feb. 26, 2013 news item on phys.org titled, Airy but thirsty: Ultralight, flexible, fire-resistant carbon nanotube aerogels from bacterial cellulose, highlights some work being done in China,

They can absorb vast amounts of oil or organic compounds, yet they are nearly as light as air: highly porous solids made of a three-dimensional network of carbon nanotubes. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, Chinese scientists have now introduced a simple technique for the production of these ultralight, flexible, fire-resistant aerogels. Their method begins with bacterial cellulose as an inexpensive starting material. Their fibrous lightweights can “suck” organic contaminants from polluted water and could possibly be used as pressure sensors.

The researchers [led by Shu-Hong Yu at the Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Micrscale (HFNL), Univeristy of Science and Technology of China] trimmed off small pieces of the tangled cellulose nanofibers. These were freeze-dried and then pyrolyzed at 1300 °C under argon. This converts the cellulose into graphitic carbon. The density decreases but the network structure remains intact. The result is a black, ultralight, mechanically stable aerogel. Because it is porous and highly hydrophobic, it can adsorb organic solvents and oils—up to 106 to 312 times its own weight. It draws oil out of an oil/water mixture with high efficiency and selectivity, leaving behind pure water. This makes the new aerogel an ideal candidate for cleaning up oil spills or sucking up nonpolar industrial pollutants. The absorbed substances can easily be removed from the gel through distillation or combustion, allowing the gel to be used again.

There’s more about the work and its possible applications at physorg.com or, if you have access behind the paywall, here’s a citation and a link to the research article,

Ultralight, Flexible, and Fire-Resistant Carbon Nanofiber Aerogels from Bacterial Cellulose by Zhen-Yu Wu, Chao Li, Dr. Hai-Wei Liang, Prof. Dr. Jia-Fu Chen, Prof. Dr. Shu-Hong Yu. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Volume 52, Issue 10, pages 2925–2929, March 4, 2013.

Here’s an image which illustrates the aerogels’ ability to suck up an organic solvent and explains some of the excitement,

Thirsty fibers: The aerogels described in the title can be fabricated in large scale by using a low-cost biomass, bacterial cellulose, as a precursor, which can be produced at industrial level in a microbial fermentation process. The carbon nanofiber aerogels (black pieces in picture) exhibit superior absorption capacity for organic solvents (red solution) and high potential for pressure sensing. [downloaded from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201209676/abstract;jsessionid=3EFB4241C0083135A6E657808F5410E5.d03t04]

Thirsty fibers: The aerogels described in the title can be fabricated in large scale by using a low-cost biomass, bacterial cellulose, as a precursor, which can be produced at industrial level in a microbial fermentation process. The carbon nanofiber aerogels (black pieces in picture) exhibit superior absorption capacity for organic solvents (red solution) and high potential for pressure sensing. [downloaded from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201209676/abstract;jsessionid=3EFB4241C0083135A6E657808F5410E5.d03t04]