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Autonomous motors of a metal–organic framework powered by reorganization of self-assembled peptides at interfaces

Nature Materials volume 11, pages 1081–1085 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

A variety of microsystems have been developed that harness energy and convert it to mechanical motion. Here we have developed new autonomous biochemical motors by integrating a metal–organic framework (MOF) and self-assembling peptides. The MOF is applied as an energy-storing cell that assembles peptides inside nanoscale pores of the coordination framework. The nature of peptides enables their assemblies to be reconfigured at the water/MOF interface, and thus converted to fuel energy. Reorganization of hydrophobic peptides can create a large surface-tension gradient around the MOF that can efficiently power its translational motion. As a comparison, the velocity normalized by volume for the diphenylalanine–MOF particle is faster and the kinetic energy per unit mass of fuel is more than twice as great as that for previous gel motor systems. This demonstration opens the route towards new applications of MOFs and reconfigurable molecular self-assembly, possibly evolving into a smart autonomous motor capable of mimicking swimming bacteria and, with integrated recognition units, harvesting target chemicals.

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Figure 1: Hybrid peptide–MOF motor.
Figure 2: Illustration of the mechanism of DPA–MOF motion.
Figure 3: DPA–MOF motor powered by self-assembly of DPA peptides at the interface.

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Acknowledgements

All of the work apart from chemical syntheses of MOFs was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering under Award No. DE-FG-02-01ER45935. Hunter College infrastructure is supported by the National Institutes of Health, the RCMI program (G12 MD007599). Chemical syntheses of MOFs in Kyoto were supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Area ‘Emergence in Chemistry’ from MEXT. H.M. acknowledges the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) for supporting his collaboration at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) in Kyoto University through the Invitation Fellowship Program for Research in Japan. Y.I. and H.M. thank R. Tu (City College of New York) for the use of and assistance with Brewster angle microscopy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, City University of New York—Hunter College, 695 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10065, USA

    Yasuhiro Ikezoe & Hiroshi Matsui

  2. Department of Synthetic Chemistry and Biological Chemistry, Kyoto University, Katsura, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 615-8510, Japan

    Gosuke Washino, Takashi Uemura & Susumu Kitagawa

  3. Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS), Kyoto University, Yoshida, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8501, Japan

    Susumu Kitagawa

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  1. Yasuhiro Ikezoe
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Contributions

H.M. and Y.I. conceived and coordinated the project. Y.I., T.U. and H.M. wrote the paper. G.W., T.U. and H.M. synthesized and analysed the materials. Y.I. and H.M. performed the motion and microscopic studies on samples. Y.I., G.W., T.U., S.K. and H.M. discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hiroshi Matsui.

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Ikezoe, Y., Washino, G., Uemura, T. et al. Autonomous motors of a metal–organic framework powered by reorganization of self-assembled peptides at interfaces. Nature Mater 11, 1081–1085 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3461

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