The structure of ultra-white beetle scales could hold the key to making bright-white sustainable paint using recycled plastic waste, scientists at the University of Sheffield have discovered.
Cyphochilus beetle scales are one of the brightest whites in nature and their ultra-white appearance is created by the nanostructure in their tiny scales, as opposed to the use of pigment or dyes.
Experts have now been able to recreate and improve on this structure in the lab using low cost materials – via a technique which could be used as a sustainable alternative to titanium dioxide in white paint.
Dr Andrew Parnell, from the University of Sheffield’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, who led the research, said: “In the natural world, whiteness is usually created by a foamy, Swiss cheese-like structure made of a solid interconnected network and air. Until now, how these structures form and develop and how they have evolved light-scattering properties has remained a mystery.
Read more at University of Sheffield
Photo credit: Olimpia1lli via Wikimedia Commons
