Major breakthroughs in material science, energy production, and industrial processes drive economic growth and improve quality of life. However, these advancements often carry detrimental environmental impacts, including resource depletion, pollution, and chemical waste generation, which lead to global eco-logical disruptions and societal challenges. An innovative approach to addressing these issues involves drawing from biological systems and processes—bio-inspiration—to develop new solutions for our energy requirements, materials, and industrial methodologies.
This research topic delves into bio-procedures such as photosynthesis, the nitrogen cycle, and bacterial re-duction of heavy metal ions. These processes can serve dual purposes—cleansing the environment and re-source extraction simultaneously. Our initial focus will be understanding these biological processes and ma-terials, and determining how to emulate them in an industrial context.
Subsequent investigations will explore novel materials originating from these bio-inspired processes, study-ing their properties and potential applications. These include biological molecules formed from fundamen-tal building blocks such as amino acids, nucleobases, sugars, and lipids, extending to scrutinizing biopoly-mers, peptides, and nucleic acids. These new materials may be more environmentally friendly, efficient to synthesize, and have increased biodegradability, serving as a foundation for enhanced agricultural produc-tivity, metal extraction, biofuel development, and other cutting-edge materials.
Research scope can encompass—but is not limited to—the following topics:
1. Artificial Photosynthesis
2. Materials derived from natural and non-natural amino acids
3. Electronic materials from natural or non-natural nucleic acids
4. Polymers from carbohydrates or other bio-monomers
5. Nitrogen production methods
Article types and fees
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Brief Research Report
Data Report
Editorial
FAIR² Data
General Commentary
Hypothesis and Theory
Methods
Mini Review
Opinion
Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.
Article types
This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:
Brief Research Report
Data Report
Editorial
FAIR² Data
General Commentary
Hypothesis and Theory
Methods
Mini Review
Opinion
Original Research
Perspective
Policy and Practice Reviews
Review
Technology and Code
Keywords: Bio-inspired Materials, Nano Energy Production, Artificial Photosynthesis, Bio-procedures in Industrial Processes, Biodegradable Industrial Materials
Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
