Future Challenges for Designing Industry‐Relevant Bioinspired Materials

Ever since its genesis, life has successfully been able to spread throughout the planet and has survived even in the harshest of conditions. It has done so through the process of "Evolution by natural selection." This ability of nature to perfect designs and materials over time has caught the eye of scientists all over the world and led to the development of materials and systems inspired from nature. This concept is called bioinspiration whose core tenet is the belief that, the solution to practically all our issues can be found in nature. A cursory examination of prior civilizations reveals that we have long known the benefits of biologically inspired materials, despite being uninformed of their specific workings and mechanisms. Now, with the help of advanced characterization and analysis tools, we are finally able to crack open nature's treasure chest and use this unprecedented wealth of knowledge to engineer materials that can tackle problems that have tormented us. Using nanotechnology, scientists have developed bioinspired materials that are far superior to the traditional materials in use today. Superior properties, non-toxic nature, and other qualities, however, are insufficient in today's capitalist environment to make these materials mainstream. These advanced bioinspired materials must overcome additional obstacles before they can be embraced by the general public. These obstacles can be broadly divided into two categories: a) difficulty in developing feasible synthesis methods; and b) challenges in ensuring the quality, stability, and sustainability of these materials. We will examine the applications of various bioinspired materials in this chapter, as well as the different hurdles that they must overcome in the coming future to be viable alternatives to existing materials. Nature is an ideal scientist who has spent millions of years developing and refining biological materials and systems with lots of time and resources, all of which are luxuries we as humans with finite lifespans cannot afford. We must be exceedingly judicious with our time and resources, concentrating our efforts on producing materials that can meet our requirements without sacrificing too much. Bioinspired materials have a bright future ahead of them, and once all of the production and material issues are resolved, they can greatly help humanity. Nature is a never-ending source of information and inspiration that will inspire us to come up with wonderful ideas and promote innovation.