A new self-assembling nanosheet could radically accelerate the development of functional and sustainable nanomaterials for electronics, energy storage, health and safety, and more.

Developed by a team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), the new self-assembling nanosheet could significantly extend the shelf life of consumer products. And because the is recyclable, it could also enable a sustainable manufacturing approach that keeps single-use packaging and electronics out of landfills.

The team is the first to successfully develop a multipurpose, high-performance barrier material from self-assembling nanosheets. The breakthrough was reported in Nature.

"Our work overcomes a longstanding hurdle in nanoscience—scaling up nanomaterial synthesis into useful materials for manufacturing and ," said Ting Xu, the principal investigator who led the study. "It's really exciting because this has been decades in the making."

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