Bioinspired Materials with Self-Adaptable Mechanical Properties

TL;DR

This paper introduces a bioinspired material system that autonomously adjusts its mechanical properties through mineralization triggered by piezoelectric charges, enhancing load-bearing performance and durability.

Contribution

It presents a novel self-adaptive material inspired by bone mineralization, capable of dynamically reinforcing high-stress regions and creating graded structures via stress-controlled mineral deposition.

Findings

Charges from piezoelectric scaffolds induce mineralization proportional to load

The system enables simple one-step fabrication of graded materials

Potential for self-healing and enhanced load-bearing applications

Abstract

Natural structural materials, such as bone and wood, can autonomously adapt their mechanical properties in response to loading to prevent failure. They smartly control the addition of material in locations of high stress by utilizing locally available resources guided by biological signals. On the contrary, synthetic structural materials have unchanging mechanical properties limiting their mechanical performance and service life. Here, a material system that autonomously adapts its mechanical properties in response to mechanical loading is reported inspired by the mineralization process of bone. It is observed that charges from piezoelectric scaffolds can induce mineralization from media with mineral ions. The material system adapts to mechanical loading by inducing mineral deposition in proportion to the magnitude of the loading and the resulting piezoelectric charges. Moreover, the mechanism allows a simple one-step route for making graded materials by controlling stress distribution along the scaffold. The findings can pave the way for a new class of self-adaptive materials that reinforce the region of high stress or induce deposition of minerals on the damaged areas from the increase in stress to prevent/mitigate failure. They can also contribute to addressing the current challenges of synthetic materials for load-bearing applications from self-adaptive capabilities.