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May 23, 2009
Professor
Creates
Materials that
Mimic Nature
Abalone shell is
a tough, rigid
material with a
luminescent
sheen. Raymond
Tu,
an Assistant
Professor of
Chemical
Engineering at
the City College
of New York,
has received a
three-year
$300,000 grant
from the U.S.
Air Force to
investigate use
of naturally
occurring
organic
molecules to
create templates
for making
non-natural
inorganic
materials that
can mimic those
properties. The
theory is to use
a small protein
molecule known
as a peptide to
“template” order
on to
non-organic
molecules, he
explains. “If we
correctly mimic
nature, we will
be able to know
precisely where
each chemical
function resides
in space.”
Professor Tu
wants to design
an architecture
for an
amphiphile
molecule, i.e.
one that has
both hydrophilic
(water soluble)
and hydrophobic
(water
repellant)
properties,
whereby the
peptide would
control the
assembly of
crystalline
structures of
zinc sulfate, an
inorganic
compound. The
aim of the
investigation is
to control for
chotoluminescence,
i.e. the
material’s
response to
light. “If we
can match the
spacing of zinc
atoms in the
crystal with
spaces in the
peptide, we will
be able to
create the
template we
desire.”
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