A review on biological and biomimetic materials and their applications

In the development of technology, a source of inspiration for mankind is the nature. Naturally, many biological surfaces having unique micro–nanostructures, such as lotus leaves, butterfly wings, rose petals and shark skin, exhibit skills and attribute beyond conventional engineering. These skills and characteristic properties are exploited by several scientists to produce bioinspired materials by mimicking biological materials. Scientists called these materials as biomimetic materials as they are developed by inspiration from nature. For the last few decades, an extensive research has been going on to introduce a wide variety of biomimetic materials which can exhibit advanced properties. This paper gives an overview of recently developed biomimetic materials such as Se-modified carbon nitride nanosheets, small intestinal submucosa, magnesium–strontium hydroxyapatite, dimethylglyoxime–urethane polyurethane, polydimethylsiloxane, Ag/Ag@AgCl/ZnO and PDTC(COOH)4/HA, along with their biological properties. In addition, the applications of the biomimetic and biological materials in various fields such as biomedical, oil–water separation, sensors, tissue engineering, genome technology and ultrasound imaging are also discussed.