Bio-inspired Murray materials for mass transfer and activity

Xianfeng Zheng, Guofang Shen, Chao Wang, Yu Li (), Darren Dunphy, Tawfique Hasan, C. Jeffrey Brinker and Bao-Lian Su ()
Additional contact information
Xianfeng Zheng: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology
Guofang Shen: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology
Chao Wang: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology
Yu Li: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology
Darren Dunphy: NSF/UNM Center for Micro-Engineered Materials, The University of New Mexico
Tawfique Hasan: Cambridge Graphene Centre, University of Cambridge
C. Jeffrey Brinker: NSF/UNM Center for Micro-Engineered Materials, The University of New Mexico
Bao-Lian Su: State Key Laboratory of Advanced Technology for Materials Synthesis and Processing, Wuhan University of Technology

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Both plants and animals possess analogous tissues containing hierarchical networks of pores, with pore size ratios that have evolved to maximize mass transport and rates of reactions. The underlying physical principles of this optimized hierarchical design are embodied in Murray’s law. However, we are yet to realize the benefit of mimicking nature’s Murray networks in synthetic materials due to the challenges in fabricating vascularized structures. Here we emulate optimum natural systems following Murray’s law using a bottom-up approach. Such bio-inspired materials, whose pore sizes decrease across multiple scales and finally terminate in size-invariant units like plant stems, leaf veins and vascular and respiratory systems provide hierarchical branching and precise diameter ratios for connecting multi-scale pores from macro to micro levels. Our Murray material mimics enable highly enhanced mass exchange and transfer in liquid–solid, gas–solid and electrochemical reactions and exhibit enhanced performance in photocatalysis, gas sensing and as Li-ion battery electrodes.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14921 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:8:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms14921

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms14921

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().