Plant Protein Amyloid Fibrils for Multifunctional Sustainable Materials

Artificial functional materials based on amyloid fibrils are proven to be a promising strategy toward materials. However, scaling-up applications present sustainability concerns, as animal proteins the main sources for fabricating fibrils. Plant-protein-based fibrils, more sustainable alternative proteins, attracting increasing interests building blocks in Herein, 11 different from wide range of plants evaluated, and comprehensive analysis seven species plant including kidney bean, black cowpea, mung chickpea, lentil, pumpkin seed, with an excellent ability form is presented. A universal diversity protein extraction fibrillization applied. Flexible persistence length ≈100 nm rigid several micrometers discovered 7S/8S 11S subunits dominated protein, respectively. Structural evolution β-sheet content these proteinaceous assemblies characterized by thioflavin T (ThT) intensity, circular dichroism (CD) spectra, attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) typical angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) spectra. Finally, their multifunctional further explored that amyloids demonstrate performance renewable degradable bioplastics, water purification membranes heavy metal removal.