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Article
M13 Virus Aerogels as a Scaffold for Functional Inorganic Materials
Advanced Functional Materials (2016)
  • Sung Mi Jung, Korea Institute of Toxicology
  • Jifa Qi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Dahyun Oh, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Angela Belcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • Jing Kong, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The filamentous M13 viruses are widely used as a bio-template to assemble many different functional structures. In this work, based on its shape anisotropy, reasonable aspect ratio (length to diameter of ≈130), and low density, freestanding, bulk 3D aerogels are assembled from M13 for the first time. These ultralight porous structures demonstrate excellent mechanical properties with elastic behavior up to 90% compression. Furthermore, as the genome of M13 virus can be rationally engineered so that proteins on its capsid or ends can specifically bind to various inorganic materials, aerogels made from inorganic-complexed M13 structures with versatile functionalities are also developed. As examples for mono- and multi-component structures, M13-Ru and M13-CoFe2O4 are explored in this work. This method enables the production of a wide variety of freestanding inorganic material aerogels with extensive opportunities for bio-scaffolds, energy storage, thermoelectrics, catalysis, hydrogen storage applications, etc., in the future.
Publication Date
December, 2016
DOI
10.1002/adfm.201603203
Publisher Statement
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Citation Information
Sung Mi Jung, Jifa Qi, Dahyun Oh, Angela Belcher, et al.. "M13 Virus Aerogels as a Scaffold for Functional Inorganic Materials" Advanced Functional Materials Vol. 27 Iss. 4 (2016) ISSN: 1616-301X
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/dahyun-oh/3/