New Hybrid Architectures Based on Clays and Biopolymers

Dear Colleagues,

Today, the term hybrid or biohybrid is widely used to describe composite materials resulting from the assembly of molecular and polymeric species of biological origin and inorganic solids of diverse structure and morphology assembled at the nanometer scale. These materials attract many scientists and engineers due to their extensive incidence in different application fields. They constitute an emerging and interdisciplinary research area involving life sciences, material sciences, and nanotechnology from environmental remediation to biomedical uses. The recent development of new nanohybrids produced by the combination at the nanometric scale of natural polymers and inorganic solids, i.e., bionanocomposites, is the basis to prepare a large number of bioinspired and biomimetic systems. The use of biopolymers therefore represents a major advantage in the field as these materials combine diverse biopolymers (proteins, lipids, polysaccharide, nucleic acids, etc.) with inorganic solids (silica, silicates, phosphates, carbonates, etc.), being of relevance due to their nontoxic, biocompatible, and biodegradable behavior. Therefore, these properties make biohybrids good candidates for use in a wide range of applications, such as food packaging, biomedicine (e.g., drug delivery, tissue engineering, artificial bone, genetic therapy), removal of pollutants, biosensing devices and bioreactors, etc. Of particular relevance are biohybrids in which the inorganic component is a silicate or aluminosilicate belonging to the clay mineral family (e.g., sepiolite, halloysite). Clays offer relevant properties afforded by their unique morphological and surface features that give rise to the enhancement of mechanical properties, and also favoring their assembly to the biopolymer matrix by hydrogen bonding through external silanol or aluminol groups (Si–OH, Al–OH) on clay surfaces. The preparation and physicochemical characterization of biohybrid materials from clays of different nature as well as other related inorganic solids, the evaluation of the properties of the biohybrid materials, and the study of their applicability in technological and industrial field represent topical and challenging issues.

Dr. Michele Iafisco
Dr. Lorenzo Degli Esposti
Guest Editors

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• Clays
• Biohybrid
• Biopolymers
• Halloysite
• Nanotubes
• Functional materials