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Spidroin‐Inspired, High‐Strength, Loofah‐Shaped Protein Fiber for Capturing Uranium from Seawater
Author(s) -
Yu Qiuhan,
Yuan Yihui,
Feng Lijuan,
Feng Tiantian,
Sun Wenyan,
Wang Ning
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
angewandte chemie international edition
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 5.831
H-Index - 550
eISSN - 1521-3773
pISSN - 1433-7851
DOI - 10.1002/anie.202007383
Subject(s) - ultimate tensile strength , fiber , materials science , uranium , nanofiber , nanotechnology , composite material , chemistry , metallurgy
Abstract The unique three‐dimensional structure of spidrion determines the outstanding mechanical properties of the spider silk fiber. Inspired by the similarity of the three‐dimensional structure of superb‐uranyl binding protein (SUP) to that of spidroin, a dual‐SUP (DSUP) chimeric protein fiber with high tensile strength is designed. The DSUP hydrogel fiber exhibits a loofah‐shape structure by the cross‐interaction of the protein nanofiber. Full exposure of abundant functional uranyl‐binding sites in the stretchable loofah‐shape hydrogel protein fiber give the DSUP fiber a groundbreaking uranium extraction capacity of 17.45 mg g −1 with an ultrashort saturation time of 3 days in natural seawater. This work reports the design of an adsorbent with ultrahigh uranium extraction capacity and explores a strategy for fabricating artificial high‐strength functional non‐spidroin protein fiber.