Bio-inspired polymer artificial

In contrast to polymersomes, there are various models of planar membranes monolayers at the water-air interface, free-standing bilayers, and solid-supported membranes. The functionality of proteins in natural membranes strongly depends on their mobility in the matrix, and this is thus an essential prerequisite for artificial membranes to mimic the dynamic environment of biomembranes in order to serve as templates for biomolecules.Therefore, the building blocks forming a bio-inspired membrane need to possess high flexibility to compensate the hydrophobic mismatch between the size of the biomolecules, and the membrane thickness. Furthermore, a variety of membrane properties (thickness, polarity, and surface charge) have to be considered for the successful insertion/attach-ment of biomolecules. Decoration of polymer membranes with biomolecules, either on their surfaces or inside the bilayers, can be achieved by various approaches, such as physical adsorption, insertion, and covalent binding. Compared to physical immobilization of biomolecules on... 

Another bio-inspired approach is to design polymersomes as enclosed reaction compartments for the development of nanoreactors, nanodevices, or artificial organelles, in which active compounds are not only protected from the environment, but also allowed to act in situ. For such function, membrane permeability is of crucial importance, since it allows the exchange of substrates/products with the environment of the pol)maersomes. Various methods have been reported to generate polymersomes with permeable membranes (i) polymers forming intrinsically porous membranes, (ii) polymer membranes that are permeable to ions as e.g. specific oxygen species, (iii) pore formation in pH responsive polymer membranes by chemical treatment, (iv) polymer membrane permeabilization by UV-irradiation, and (v) biopores or membrane proteins inserted into polymer membranes. ... 

Chen Z, Shatara S, Tan X (2010) Modeling of biomimetic robotic fish propelled by an ionic polymer-metal composite caudd fin. lEEE/ASME Trans Mech 15(3) 448-459 Chen Z, Uma T, Bait-Smith H (2012) Bio-inspired robotic manta ray powered by ionic polymer-metal composite artificial muscles. Int J Smart Nano Mater 3(4) 296-308 Cheng J, Pedley T, Ahringham J (1998) A continuous dynamic beam model for swimming fish. Phil Trans R Soc B 353(1371) 981-997... 

Natural polymers are assembled in an incredible variety of complex architectures in the plant and animal kingdom. The diversity of the mechanisms used in nature for the production of structural colour has been intensively covered in several books and reviews, which have appeared during the recent maturation of this field. Although the formation/ development of these structures in nature is far from being understood, they are an excellent source of inspiration for emerging technologies, even though the artificial production of structural colour is still in its infancy in comparison to the advanced structures found in nature. Most bio-mimetic... 

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