AN INTERNATIONAL TEAM OF RESEARCHERS FROM THE UNIVERSITIES OF PADUA AND HONG KONG HAS RECENTLY PUBLISHED A STUDY IN NATURE WHICH TELLS OF A REVOLUTIONARY DISCOVERY: A NEW MATERIAL OF NANOSCOPIC DIMENSIONS TO PURIFY THE AIR. THIS INNOVATION IS BASED ON ARTIFICIAL PROTEIN CAPSULES, WHICH REPLICATE THE BIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF STORAGE AND TRANSPORT OF MOLECULES, USED FOR CENTURIES IN BIOLOGICAL PROCESSES
How and where it all started
An international team of researchers from University of Padua e Hong Kongwith the support of US institutions such as Duke, Northwestern, South Florida and the California Institute of Technology and Chinese universities such as Tianjin, Anhui e Zhejianghas discovered a new material with characteristics similar to biological capsules.
The study, entitled “Dynamic supramolecular snub cubes” and published in the scientific journal Nature, was coordinated by Sir James Fraser Stoddart, Nobel Prize winner for chemistry in 2016, who passed away on 30 December 2024.
Artificial protein capsules: what they are
Protein capsules are supramolecular polyhedra, that is, structures made up of protein subunits that self-assemble through weak bonds. These structures are crucial in biology, where they store vital substances, such as the genetic material of viruses and the iron in ferritins. Researchers have now developed artificial supramolecular polyhedra that mimic these biological capsules, with the ability to store and release substances in a controlled and intelligent manner.
A new material “intelligent” to purify air and water
The discovery of the process that allows us to recognize molecules and prepare artificial capsules has opened the way to the study of two fundamental characteristics of these new materials, similar to biological ones: the dynamics and the ability to encapsulate substances.
These properties are essential for system development “intelligent”since they allow substances to be captured and released in a controlled way, using light as a stimulus. Potential applications include air and water purification.waterthanks to the storage of hydrocarbons.
The Importance of chirality and geometry to capture pollutants
«For the preparation of this new material it was fundamental to exploit chiral molecules», explains Luka Ðorđević, author of the research and professor at the University of Padua. Chirality is a property that describes objects that are mirror images of each other but not superimposable, such as left and right hands.
This is a characteristic, present in nature in structures such as DNA and proteins, which has been used to develop synthetic capsules measuring just a few nanometers. These capsules can store hydrocarbons such as benzene and cyclohexane, pollutants for air and water.
The geometry of a material influences its properties and therefore its possible applications: this new synthetic polyhedron is interesting because it reproduces the geometry of “simmo cube” (snub cube), one of the 15 Archimedean polyhedra with 60 edges, 24 vertices and 38 faces. Furthermore, also the “simmo cube” it is chiral and therefore occurs in two mirror-image forms.