The world's thinnest spaghetti is only 372 nm wide, which is about 1/200th the width of a human hair.
Britton others. Using a scanning electron microscope, they scanned the mat with a focused beam of electrons and created images based on the patterns of electrons that were deflected, or bounced away. The individual strands are too thin to be clearly captured by any form of visible light camera or microscope. Image credit: Beatrice Britton/Adam Clancy.
Beatrice Britton, a researcher at University College London, and her colleagues said: “This novel nanopasta is not intended as a new food product, but rather that strands of ultra-thin material called nanofibers have a wide range of uses in medicine and industry. It was made with usage in mind.”
“Nanofibers made from starch are particularly promising and could be used in dressings to aid wound healing and as scaffolds for bone regeneration and drug delivery.”
“But they rely on starches that are extracted and purified from plant cells, a process that requires a lot of energy and water.”
“A more environmentally friendly method is to create nanofibers directly from starch-rich raw materials, such as the flour that pasta is made from.”
To create the spaghetti, which is just 372 nm in diameter, the authors used a technique called electrospinning. In this technique, a thread of flour and liquid is pulled through the tip of a needle by an electric charge.
“To make spaghetti, you push a mixture of water and flour through metal holes,” says Adam Clancy, a researcher at University College London.
“In our study, we did the same thing, except we charged the flour mixture and forced it through. It's literally spaghetti, but much smaller.”
The new nanopasta forms a mat of nanofibers about 2 cm in diameter that is visible to the eye, but the individual strands are too thin to be clearly captured by any form of visible light camera or microscope. Therefore, its width was measured using a scanning electron microscope.
Professor Gareth Williams, from University College London, said: “Nanofibers, such as those made from starch, are highly porous and therefore show potential for use in wound dressings.”
“Additionally, nanofibers are also being investigated for use as scaffolds for tissue regrowth because they mimic the extracellular matrix (the network of proteins and other molecules that cells build to support themselves). .”
“Starch is a promising material to use because it is abundant and renewable. Starch is the second largest source of biomass on Earth after cellulose, and it is biodegradable, so it can be broken down in the body,” Clancy said. the doctor said.
“However, refining starch requires a lot of processing. We have shown that a simple method of making nanofibers using wheat flour is possible.”
“The next step is to investigate the properties of this product.”
“We want to know, for example, how quickly it breaks down, how it interacts with cells, and whether we can produce it at scale.”
In electrospinning, the needle containing the mixture and the metal plate on which the mixture is deposited form the two ends of the battery.
When a charge is applied, the mixture flows out of the needle and onto the metal plate, completing the circuit.
Electrospinning with starch-rich raw materials, such as refined flour, is more difficult than with pure starch because impurities (proteins and cellulose) increase the viscosity of the mixture, making it impossible to form fibers.
The researchers used flour and formic acid instead of water. This is because formic acid breaks down the giant helical stacks that make up starch.
This is because the layers of helices stuck together are too large to be the building blocks of nanofibers.
When the noodles fly through the air and reach the metal plate, the formic acid evaporates.
The scientists also had to carefully warm the mixture for several hours and then slowly cool it to the right consistency.
“As the newly developed material is composed of fibers formed by extruding and drying flour, it could be defined as pasta, breaking the previous record for the thinnest pasta runga by about 1,000 the researchers concluded.
their paper appear in the diary Nanoscale advances.
_____
Beatrice Britton others. Nanopasta: Electrospinning white flour nanofibers. nanoscale advancepublished online October 30, 2024. doi: 10.1039/D4NA00601A
Source: www.sci.news
