Building Up Functional Bionanocomposites from the Assembly of Clays and Biopolymers.

Functional bionanocomposites are developed from the assembly of naturally occurring polymers and inorganic solids that show at least one dimension at the nanoscale. Our research group focused on the development of bionanocomposites based on clay minerals, including smectites and fibrous silicates, as well as layered double hydroxides. The resulting materials show interesting properties regarding biocompatibility and biodegradability, together with improved mechanical and thermal properties in comparison to the pristine biopolymer. Besides these characteristics, they offer also other interesting functional properties that allow their potential use in a wide range of applications, including sensors, drug delivery and other health care applications, bioplastics and environmental remediation. For these materials, nature provides not only the components but also the inspiration to develop new combinations that may give rise to nanostructured biomaterials with exceptional features.