Distinguished Professor Takuzo AIDA and His Group Develops Ultralight yet Tough Artificial Loofah Sponge for Resource Efficiency and Low Environmental Impact

  A joint research group led by Professor Takuzo Aida, Distinguished Professor of Tokyo College, Institute for Advanced Studies at the University of Tokyo, has succeeded in developing an ultralight porous crosslinked ultrathin film with the highest mechanical strength ever reported. This breakthrough challenges the conventional belief that ultralight porous polymers inherently possess low mechanical strength.

Information
Title: Electric double-layer synthesis of a sponge-like, lightweight reticular membrane
Authors: Yoshimitsu Itoh*, Tengfei Fu, Pier-Luc Champagne, Yudai Yokoyama, Kunita Numabe, You-lee Hong, Yusuke Nishiyama, Hsiao-Fang Wang, Akemi Kumagai, Hiroshi Jinnai, Hirohmi Watanabe, Teiko Shibata-Seki, Asuteka Nagao, Tsutomu Suzuki, Yukie Saito, Keigo Wakabayashi, Takeharu Yoshii, Atsushi Izumi, Katsumi Hagita, Junichi Furukawa, and Takuzo Aida*
Journal: Science
DOI：https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq0782

  This research was supported by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) under the PREST Program “Synthetic Chemistry Using Non-Equilibrium Reaction Field Induced by Electric Field” (Project No. JPMJPR21Q1), as well as by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) through a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B) (Project No. 21H01903) and a Grant-in-Aid for Specially Promoted Research (Project No. 23H05408).

See also: U-Tokyo School of Engineering