Abstract
Bioinspired manufacturing, in the sense of replicating the way nature fabricates, may hold great potential for supporting a socioeconomic transformation towards a sustainable society. Use of unmodified ubiquitous biological components suggests for a fundamentally sustainable manufacturing paradigm where materials are produced, transformed into products and degraded in closed regional systems with limited requirements for transport. However, adoption is currently limited by the fact that despite their ubiquitous nature, these biopolymers are predominantly harvested as industrial and agricultural products. In this study, we overcome this limitation by developing a link between bioinspired manufacturing and urban waste bioconversion. This result is paramount for the development of circular economic models, effectively connecting the organic by-products of civilization to locally decentralized, general-purpose manufacturing.
Highlights
Bioinspired manufacturing, in the sense of replicating the way nature fabricates, may hold great potential for supporting a socioeconomic transformation towards a sustainable society
The amine I band was split into two bands at 1,652 and 1,619 cm−1 (Supplementary Tables 1 and 2), respectively, resulting from the two hydrogen bonds in the antiparallel alignment of α-chitin; this result confirmed that the nature of chitin from Black Soldier Fly (BSF) is similar to that extracted from other arthropods, albeit different from the isomeric form found in squid (i.e., β-chitin, Fig. 2a)
This similarity is confirmed by X-ray diffraction (Fig. 2b), and it is in agreement with the previous characterization data of chitin extracted from other insects, such as bees[18,19], cicada[20], and silkworms[21], as well as previous studies on BSF22
Summary
Bioinspired manufacturing, in the sense of replicating the way nature fabricates, may hold great potential for supporting a socioeconomic transformation towards a sustainable society. Motivated by the ubiquity and mechanical relevance of chitonous polymers, from an early hypothesis some ten years ago[14] bioinspired chitinous composites developed rapidly towards general-purpose manufacturing by demonstrating their capability for producing large-scale objects, integrating with additive manufacturing, fabricating within limited energy requirements, retaining costs similar to commodity plastics[15], and perhaps most critically, being able to maintain seamless integration with the ecological cycles of earth spanning from their renewable sourcing and biological composition to their natural biodegradation[16]. The process is centered around the first and second most ubiquitous organic polymers on the earth, namely cellulose and chitin These polymers are produced and degraded in large amounts by living organisms in every habitat, including urban ecosystems, enabling the possibility for adoption worldwide. Coupled with their ability for free-form additive manufacturing, the process presented here allows for the first time a general route to embed manufacturing within its surrounding ecosystem
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