Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) pave the pay for a new era in nano-technology. Say hello to transistors made of blood, milk and mucus.
Blood, milk and mucus proteins could soon replace silicon to produce transistors, which amplify electrical signals and are at the basis of most modern technology. One of the most important benefits of this discovery is that these transistors will be biodegradable.
A team of researchers including students Elad Mentovich and Netta Hendler of TAU’s Department of Chemistry and The Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, with supervisor Shachar Richter and in collaboration with Prof. Michael Gozin and his student Bogdan Belgorodsky, have brought together biology and chemistry to create self- assembling protein-based transistors.
Each organic protein has unique properties and when mixed together can create a complete circuit with electronic and optical capabilities with great flexibility in terms of conductivity, memory storage, and fluorescence.
Blood proteins can absorb oxygen allowing researchers to add different chemicals to adjust the properties of the semiconductor in order to create specific technological properties. Milk proteins, which say strong and stable in different environments, form the fibers which become the building blocks of the transistors. Finally, mucosal proteins have the ability to keep red, green and, blue fluorescent dyes separate, together creating the white light emission that is necessary for advanced optics.
If this can be scaled up, there will be an important revolution in nano- sized technology. First there will be a shift from a silicon era to a carbon era, and these products will be biodegradable, notes Mentovich.
Apple, Nokia and all the big electronic companies could finally help address the growing problem of electronic waste, which is overflowing landfills worldwide.
Second, transistors built from blood, milk and mucus proteins will be ideal for producing smaller, flexible devices. Current technology which uses silicon is 18 nanometers high, but in the case of blood protein, for example, the film is approximately four nanometers high.
This breakthrough in biological electronics could lead to a new range of flexible technologies, screens, cell phones, tablets, biosensors, and microprocessor chips. The hope is that this can lead to a more flexible and eco-friendly technology.
The team at Tel Aviv says they are already working on a biodegradable display, with other electronic devices to follow.
Image of gold nanospikes from Shutterstock
Author: Linda Pappagallo
Linda's love for nature started when at the age of eight she discovered, with her dog, a magical river in the valley of a mountainous region in Lebanon. For four years Linda and her dog explored along the river, until one day she saw construction scrapers pushing rock boulders down the valley to make way for new construction sites. The rubble came crashing into the river destroying her little paradise, and her pathetic reaction was to shout at the mechanic monsters. Of course that was not enough to stop the destructive processes. As she continued to observe severe environmental degradation across the different places she lived in the Middle East and Africa, these terrible images remained impressed in her mind. However, environmental issues where not her first love. Her initial academic and career choices veered towards sustainable economic development, with particular interest in savings led microfinance schemes. Nevertheless, through experience, she soon realized a seemingly obvious but undervalued concept. While humans can somewhat defend themselves from the greed of other humans, nature cannot. Also nature, the environment, is the main “system” that humans depend on, not economics. These conclusions changed her path and she is now studying a Masters in...
