3D-Printed Fabric, Made From Leftover Wool, Can Be Programmed with Complex Shape-Shifting Powers
Using keratin extracted from leftover wool, the team has developed a "programmable" fabric which can change its shape on demand.
Researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a 3D-printable material which can be programmed with reversible shape memory — and it's made using natural Agora wool.
"With this project, we have shown that not only can we recycle wool but we can build things out of the recycled wool that have never been imagined before," explains Kit Parker, the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS and senior author of the paper. "The implications for the sustainability of natural resources are clear. With recycled keratin protein, we can do just as much, or more, than what has been done by shearing animals to date and, in doing so, reduce the environmental impact of the textile and fashion industry."
The researcher's approach involves printing sheets of keratin, extracted from leftover Agora wool from the fashion industry, and programming a shape using a mixture of hydrogen peroxide and monosodium phosphate. To prove the concept, some relatively complex shapes were programmed: An origami star, for example, was exposed to water so it became malleable, rolled into a tube and allowed to dry, then dunked back in the water again — at which point it unrolled from the tube and returned to its original star shape.
"This two-step process of 3D printing the material and then setting its permanent shapes allows for the fabrication of really complex shapes with structural features down to the micron level," says postdoctoral fellow and first author Luca Cera. "This makes the material suitable for a vast range of applications from textile to tissue engineering."
"Whether you are using fibers like this to make brassieres whose cup size and shape can be customized every day, or you are trying to make actuating textiles for medical therapeutics, the possibilities of Luca's work are broad and exciting," adds Parker. "We are continuing to reimagine textiles by using biological molecules as engineering substrates like they have never been used before."
The work has been published under closed-access terms in the journal Nature Materials.