Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
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DOI:
10.7502/j.issn.1674-3962.2014.04.02
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Abstract:
As a result of evolution for billions of years, biomaterials have possessed different amazing properties. Generally, biomaterials are assembled with limited supply of constitutes available to living organism under mild conditions. The surprising properties are largely due to the sophisticated hierarchical structures, for example, the mussel adhesive protein with catechol unit possesses strong and universal adhesion, the spider silks with bead-in-string structure have superior mechanical property and water-collection ability, the hollow polar bear hairs have the ability of thermal insulation, the wings of butterfly with ordered micro- and nanostructure exhibit beautiful colors and the foam-like peal of pummel with a gradient structure makes it impact resistance. Preparing manmade materials by following the design principles of nature has drawn great attention in materials science and engineering. In the past decades, a large number of papers in this field have been published. In this review, the recent progress in the preparation of bio-inspired materials mimicking the structures of natural prototypes is summarized. Typical examples which are mentioned above from low to high dimensions are described with emphasis on the relationship between the structure and corresponding functions.