AsianScientist (Apr. 19, 2018) – A team of researchers from Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) has found that virus films can act as a heat-dissipating material. Their results, published in Scientific Reports, could lead to virus-based materials for keeping electronics cool.
Although researchers are interested in using organic polymers for flexible electronics, the material’s low thermal conductivity prevents it from dissipating heat generated by the electronics. To improve the thermal conductivity of organic polymer materials, additives such as metallic nanoparticles or inorganic nanotubes are used. However, these additives are expensive and may change other desirable properties of organic polymers.
In the present study, researchers led by Tokyo Tech’s Assistant Professor Toshiki Sawada and Professor Takeshi Serizawa have instead used a film made of non-toxic viruses as a heat dissipating material.
Starting with an aqueous solution of M13 bacteriophages, the researchers formed a well-ordered virus film by taking advantage of the coffee ring effect. When a drop of coffee on a piece of paper begins to evaporate, water evaporates more quickly at the edges of the droplet, concentrating the coffee particles at the perimeter of the droplet and leaving a characteristic ring-like stain. In the same way, evaporation caused the viruses to assemble into an organized film when dried on a piece of glass.
Using small-angle X-ray scattering, the team found that the viruses had formed a hexagonal arrangement in the film. The regularly arranged film was was ten times better at diffusing heat than a film of viruses with no orientation.
Using evaporation to create heat conducting materials can be done under mild conditions and does not require special equipment. As such, the researchers say that their method aids the development of electronic devices made not only of viruses but also other naturally derived molecules.
The article can be found at: Sawada et al. (2018) Filamentous Virus-based Assembly: Their Oriented Structures and Thermal Diffusivity.
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Source: Tokyo Institute of Technology.
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