For the past couple of decades, scientists and engineers have been following nature’s lead, designing molecules that assemble themselves in water, with the goal of making nanostructures, primarily for biomedical applications such as drug delivery or tissue engineering.
A team at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering has now designed a new class of small molecules that spontaneously assemble into nanoribbons with unprecedented strength, retaining their structure outside of water.
For the full story, see the March 2021 edition of Smart Textiles & Wearables.