Tianle Chen, Zhenqian Pang, Shuaiming He, Yang Li, Snehi Shrestha, Joshua M Little, Haochen Yang, Tsai-Chun Chung, Jiayue Sun, Hayden Christopher Whitley, I-Chi Lee, Taylor J Woehl, Teng Li, Liangbing Hu, Po-Yen Chen
One possible solution against the accumulation of petrochemical plastics in natural environments is to develop biodegradable plastic substitutes using natural components. However, discovering all-natural alternatives that meet specific properties, such as optical transparency, fire retardancy and mechanical resilience, which have made petrochemical plastics successful, remains challenging. Current approaches still rely on iterative optimization experiments. Here we show an integrated workflow that combines robotics and machine learning to accelerate the discovery of all-natural plastic substitutes with programmable optical, thermal and mechanical properties...
March 18, 2024: Nature Nanotechnology