•Contrive artificial photosynthetic system with functional structure and ingredient.•Artificial photosynthetic system exhibits high visible-light H2-production rate.•The improved H2-production rate is the couple effect of structure and composition.•Pave a shortcut to get desirable functional materials by learning from nature.Photosynthesis of green plants provides an effective blueprint for transform solar energy into useful hydrogen energy. Thereinto, their hierarchical structures are favorable to the light-harvesting. Meanwhile, the functional components (light-harvesting pigments) can absorb visible wavelengths of sunlight, and offer reaction center for the energy transform. Inspired by these, we contrive an artificial photosynthetic system for the high efficiency of H2-production rate by introducing a similar functional structure (reticular hierarchical structure) and component (CdS/Pt–TiO2). The CdS/Pt–TiO2 with hierarchically reticular structure is prepared by transforming wings into TiO2 via a sol–gel process, and depositing Pt and CdS nanoparticles onto the TiO2 substrate by photoreduction and chemical bath deposition method, respectively. Contributing to the couple effect of reticular hierarchical structure and ternary hybrid composition, CdS/Pt–TiO2 nanocomposites exhibit high visible-light photocatalytic H2-production rate (12.7% apparent quantum efficiency obtained at 420 nm). This concept provides a new horizon to exploit solar energy for sustainable energy by imitating the photosynthesis process from structure and ingredients.An artificial photosynthetic system is constructed by endowing CdS/Pt–TiO2 with reticular hierarchical structure of butterfly wings, which presents high H2 evolution efficiency under visible light.

Mother Nature has always taught us lots about the arcanum of God's creation, which primarily ties to the wonderful and complex self-assembly of biomolecules even in a mild condition. In the present work, we put forward a bio-inspired strategy, that is, directly bring in biological systems capable of self-assembly to fabricate functionalized hierarchical structures for effective gas sensing. For advanced pollination, biomolecules in pollen coats could self assemble to form bio-structures with effective mass transportablity, and herein were used to guide the self assembly of SnO2-precusors, which finally transferred to SnO2 materials by calcination. Gaining the 3D hierarchical porous structrues formed in the self-assembly of biomolecules, the as-fabricated SnO2 has high connective porous networks from macro- to micro-, and even nanoscale. The specific structures could facilite target gases to quickly transport towards, and then fully react with, the SnO2 nanoparticles, and thus endow the SnO2 with excellent gas response to both reducing gases (C2H5OH and CH3CH2CH3) and oxidising gas (Cl2). This present strategy provides a novel and facile way towards the development of functionallized hierarchical structures by learning from natural self-assembled systems. The resultant hierarchical structures can be extended to other applications in filters, adsorbents, catalysis, thermal, acoustic and electrical insulators, and so on.

In this article, a bio-inspired silk-mediated method was established to produce natural material-modified photoluminescent zinc oxide nanoparticles (nano-ZnO). Silk fibroin fibers were employed as the reactive substrates to synthesize nano-ZnO, and silk fibroins (SF) were taken as the biocompatible stabilizers to modify dispersed nano-ZnO. As-prepared nano-ZnO were mainly hexagonal phase particles with diameter around 13 nm. The resulting nano-ZnO/SF hybrids displayed orange emission and good biocompatibility in aqueous system.

In this contribution, the subtle periodic nanostructures in butterfly wings and peacock feathers are applied as natural PhC matrices to in situ embed CdS nanocrystallites (nano-CdS) on the structure surface via a convenient solution process. The resulting nano-CdS/natural PhCs nanocomposites show typical 1D, quasi 1D and 2D PhC structures at the nanoscale, which is inherited from the corresponding natural periodic bio-matrices. Moreover, their reflection properties are investigated and show dependence on PhC type, structure parameter, loading amount, as well as collecting angle. This work suggests that natural periodic bio-structures could be perfect matrices to construct novel nanocomposite PhCs, whose photonic band structures are tunable and thus achieve controllable optical properties. Related ideas could inspire the design and synthesis of future nanocomposite PhCs.

Well-organized porous hierarchical SnO2 with connective hollow interiors has been synthesized by using butterfly wings as templates via an aqueous sol–gel soakage process followed by calcination. The biomorphic porous hierarchy was constructed by a layer of flexural wall that was assembled by SnO2 nanocrystallites with diameter of around 7.0 nm. The wall thickness was tunable under the control of the impregnants concentration as well as the immersing time. The biomorphic SnO2 showed good sensing to ethanol and formaldehyde, due to its small nanocrystalline building blocks and unique porous hierarchical architecture. More interestingly, the response was found to be controllable and dependent on the wall thickness. The response decreased with the increase of wall thickness, which should be ascribed to the increasing difficulty of gas diffusion to the inner of the walls.

A facile solution process is developed, through which butterfly wings are taken as natural photonic crystal (PhC) scaffolds to control the synthesis and assembly of CdS nanocrystallites, and thus to achieve novel optical nanocomposites with unobtainable PhC features. Practically, the original wings can be activated by an EDTA/DMF suspension to first serve as in-situ reactive substrates for CdS seeds, and then provide the PhC structures for the following heterogeneous deposition of CdS nanoparticles (nano-CdS). The obtained nano-CdS covering precisely preserves the efficient structure details of the natural PhCs from macro-scale down to ∼100 nm. In the resulting nano-CdS/butterfly wing composites, the assembly patterns of nano-CdS can be controlled at two levels: one is the PhC structures (>100 nm) decided by the wing scale hierarchy, the other is the nano-CdS small clusters (<100 nm) distributed on the PhC structures. Such a combination of nano-CdS and butterfly wings should create novel optoelectronic properties, and relevant ideas could inspire the investigation of PhC materials.

In this investigation, the natural 2D photonic crystals (PhCs) within peacock feathers are applied to incorporate CdS nanocrystallites. Peacock feathers are activated by ethylenediaminetetraacetic/dimethylformamide suspension to increase the reactive sites on the keratin component, on which CdS nanoparticles (nano-CdS) are in situ formed in succession and serve as the “seeds” to direct further incorporation during the following solvothermal procedure. Thus, homogeneous nano-CdS are loaded both on the feathers’ surface layer and inside the 2D PhCs. The obtained nano-CdS/peacock feathers hybrids are novel photonic crystals whose photonic stop bands are markedly different from that of the natural PhCs within original peacock feathers, as observed by the reflection spectra.

Evolvement of bio-inspired approaches for the construction of well-ordered nanocomposites is a crucial intersectant branch of materials science and biotechnology. In this paper, floriated clusters of silver nanocrystallites consisted of polycrystalline grains of 5–10 nm in diameter, have been successfully prepared on silk fibroin fibers (SFF) through a biotemplate redox approach at room temperature. The reductive amino acid tyrosine of SFF mainly provided both reduction and location functions under alkaline conditions, could reduce Ag(I) ions to Ag(0), finally stable silver particles were generated on the SFF substrates. Thus, small-sized but well-crystallized silver nanocrystallites could associate with the biosubstrate SFF to be organized into subtle hierarchy, as a result to form inorganic–organic hybrids under the direction of the SFF biomacromolecules. The morphologies of silver nanoparticles were mostly attributed to the concentration of silver nitrate solution as well as special configurations and structures of SFF macromolecules. This study represents an important advance in the use of biofibers in the synthesis of hierarchical functional hybrid nanocomposites by a green and mild technique.

Hierarchical nanocomposite films with Pd−PdO nanoparticles anchored uniformly on the inner surface of TiO2 nanotubes were achieved through a stepwise bioredox/artifical oxygenation approach by using the natural eggshell membrane (ESM) as a template. The Pd content ratio of Pd−PdO loading could be arbitrarily varied from 0 to 53 wt %, and the ESM-morphic nanocomposites Pd−PdO/TiO2 exhibited porous and multiphasic features, facilitating light transport and molecule accessibility to the active site during photocatalytic reactions. The photocatalytic activity of target nanocomposites was determined by the degradation of rhodamine B. The composites with a ratio of 10 wt % TiO2 (5 wt % Pd of Pd−PdO loading) presented a high degradation efficiency of 99.3% and showed good stability with a second run of about 95.3% and a third run of 94.6%. These composites with structural particularity and complexity are expected to find potential applications in various fields, such as photovoltaic devices, gas sensors, antistatic coating, dye-sensitized solar cells, etc.

As a representative semiconductor metal oxide, hierarchical biomorphic mesoporous TiO2 with interwoven meshwork conformation was successfully prepared using eggshell membrane (ESM) as a biotemplate by an aqueous soakage technique followed by calcination treatment. The synthesis conditions were systematically investigated by controlling the concentration, the pH value of the precursor impregnant, and so on. The nucleation, growth, and assembly into ESM-biomorphic TiO2 in our work depended more on the functions of ESM biomacromolecules as well as the processing conditions. As-prepared TiO2 meshwork exhibiting hierarchical porous structure with the pore size from 2 nm up to 4 μm, was composed of intersectant fibers assembled by nanocrystallites at three dimensions. Based on the researches into the N2 adsorption–desorption isothermal and corresponding BJH pore-size distribution, the biomorphic TiO2 would arose interesting applications in some fields such as photocatalysis, gas sensors, antistatic coating, dye-sensitized solar cells, etc. This mild method and the relevant ideas offer a feasible path to synthesize a new family of functional materials by integrating material science, chemistry, and biotechnology.Hierarchical mesoporous TiO2 is assembled by nanoparticles from the nanoscale to the macroscale through a bio-inspired sol–gel approach with eggshell membrane used as the biotemplate. As-prepared hierarchical titania shows porous characters within the pore size range of 2 nm–4 μm.

A simple and green technique has been developed to prepare hierarchical biomorphic ZnO, using eggshell membrane (ESM) as the template. ESM was infiltrated with zinc nitrate solution and subsequently sintered at high temperatures to produce the final ZnO interwoven nanofibers. Different from traditional immersion technics, the whole synthesis process depends more on the restriction or direction functions of the ESM biomacromolecules. The precision replication of natural biostructures can be achieved by the assembly of ZnO nanocrystallites about 5 nm. Consequently, the interwoven meshwork at three dimensions is formed due to the direction of biotemplate. The action mechanism is summarily discussed here. It may bring the biomorphic ZnO semiconductors with hierarchical interwoven structures to more applications, such as catalysts, photoelectrochemical devices, etc.

A simple, green and versatile route has been developed for the fabrication of hierarchical SnO2 via a soaking technique combined with a calcination treatment. The biomaterial eggshell membrane (ESM) is used as the template, and Sn(NO3)4 solution acts as the impregnant. As-prepared SnO2 nanoparticles assemble into tubular fibers, and further array into porous hierarchical meshworks to faithfully retain the morphology of the natural ESM. The sintering temperature has a significant effect on the morphology and surface pore-size distribution of the target material.

Mother Nature has always taught us lots about the arcanum of God's creation, which primarily ties to the wonderful and complex self-assembly of biomolecules even in a mild condition. In the present work, we put forward a bio-inspired strategy, that is, directly bring in biological systems capable of self-assembly to fabricate functionalized hierarchical structures for effective gas sensing. For advanced pollination, biomolecules in pollen coats could self assemble to form bio-structures with effective mass transportablity, and herein were used to guide the self assembly of SnO2-precusors, which finally transferred to SnO2 materials by calcination. Gaining the 3D hierarchical porous structrues formed in the self-assembly of biomolecules, the as-fabricated SnO2 has high connective porous networks from macro- to micro-, and even nanoscale. The specific structures could facilite target gases to quickly transport towards, and then fully react with, the SnO2 nanoparticles, and thus endow the SnO2 with excellent gas response to both reducing gases (C2H5OH and CH3CH2CH3) and oxidising gas (Cl2). This present strategy provides a novel and facile way towards the development of functionallized hierarchical structures by learning from natural self-assembled systems. The resultant hierarchical structures can be extended to other applications in filters, adsorbents, catalysis, thermal, acoustic and electrical insulators, and so on.

A facile solution process is developed, through which butterfly wings are taken as natural photonic crystal (PhC) scaffolds to control the synthesis and assembly of CdS nanocrystallites, and thus to achieve novel optical nanocomposites with unobtainable PhC features. Practically, the original wings can be activated by an EDTA/DMF suspension to first serve as in-situ reactive substrates for CdS seeds, and then provide the PhC structures for the following heterogeneous deposition of CdS nanoparticles (nano-CdS). The obtained nano-CdS covering precisely preserves the efficient structure details of the natural PhCs from macro-scale down to ∼100 nm. In the resulting nano-CdS/butterfly wing composites, the assembly patterns of nano-CdS can be controlled at two levels: one is the PhC structures (>100 nm) decided by the wing scale hierarchy, the other is the nano-CdS small clusters (<100 nm) distributed on the PhC structures. Such a combination of nano-CdS and butterfly wings should create novel optoelectronic properties, and relevant ideas could inspire the investigation of PhC materials.