(ORDO NEWS) — The new technology makes it possible to obtain a transparent and durable material from peptides and amino acids.
Such glass demonstrates excellent optical properties and safely decomposes not only in nature, but also directly in the body of animals.
Every year the world industry produces almost 40 million tons of glass.
Theoretically, it is an easily recyclable material, but in practice, less than a third is reused. The rest goes to landfills and, due to its high inertness, accumulates in huge quantities.
Not surprisingly, scientists are looking for ways to produce more environmentally friendly transparent materials – for example, from wood.
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences have proposed their own solution to this global problem. They have developed a technology for producing “biomolecular” glass, which quickly disintegrates in nature.
To obtain such material, amino acids and peptides are used – short chains of amino acids.
Their powder is heated in an inert gas atmosphere to a temperature above the melting point, but not reaching a level at which the molecules break down.
The mixture is then cooled below freezing to form a supercooled liquid. Finally, water is added to it, as a result of which the substance passes into a non-crystalline solid phase.
The authors note that the resulting material exhibits “excellent optical performance, good mechanical properties and processing flexibility.” This allows it to be shaped or even used in 3D printing.
At the same time, the organic composition allows such glass to quickly decompose.
Experiments have shown that under natural conditions it degrades over a period of three weeks to 7.5 months, depending on the set of amino acids and peptides used.
What’s more, Xuehai’s team tested the new material on animals, demonstrating that it breaks down in mice without any noticeable harm to health.
Scientists believe that this will allow the use of “biomolecular” glass as part of temporary medical implants or devices for targeted drug delivery.
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