Book by Academician Fu Zhengyi's Team: Bioprocessing-Inspired Fabrication Technology of Materials

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Materials have four basic elements: manufacturing (processing), structure, properties and service performance. Biological systems share a similar set: biological manufacturing, biological structure, biological properties and service performance. The biological manufacturing process determines the biological structure, and the biological structure determines the performance and function of the biological system. Inspired by biological structures and functions, learning from the exquisite structures or functions of biological materials to fabricate artificial structural or functional materials has become an important breakthrough in materials research.

The manufacturing processes of biological systems mostly occur under mild ambient conditions, achieving efficient and precise preparation of biological materials without harsh conditions such as high temperature and high pressure. High-temperature sintering in conventional ceramic processing differs fundamentally from room-temperature synthesis in biological systems: the former is high-temperature-driven atomic diffusion, while the latter is synthesis, transport and assembly guided by biological matter. Academician Fu Zhengyi’s team believes that the exquisite manufacturing processes of biological matter deserve to be learned from, and accordingly proposed the new research direction of “bioprocessing-inspired fabrication technology of materials”, also referred to as process-biomimetic fabrication technology of materials, advocating learning from biological manufacturing processes, or from the relationship between biological manufacturing and biological structures, to develop new technologies for material synthesis and fabrication.

In earlier work, the team carried out research on biomineralization-inspired and photosynthesis-inspired materials fabrication, achieving a series of important results: learning from bone formation, they found that synthesis and crystallization products of minerals within collagen fibrils generate megapascal-level contraction stress, and for the first time fabricated prestressed composite structural ceramic microtubes, published in Science; inspired by amorphous phases acting as precursors for mineral formation in organisms, they studied the effect of magnesium ions on the crystallization transformation of amorphous calcium carbonate and discovered and synthesized a new hydrated calcium carbonate phase, hemihydrate calcium carbonate, published in Science; by constructing natural biological preparation platforms, they synthesized ceramic powders with new structures and good performance at room temperature, clarifying the influence and regulation mechanism of biomass-material interfacial effects on structure formation, published in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed.; and were invited to write a review in Progress in Materials Science. Academician Fu Zhengyi was also invited to give plenary lectures at the 12th Pacific Rim Conference on Ceramic and Glass Technology (2017) and the 16th European Ceramic Society Conference (2019), and received the John Jeppson Award and the Samuel Geijsbeek International Award from the American Ceramic Society.

Recently, Academician Fu Zhengyi and Researcher Zou Zhaoyong, together with Academician Jiang Lei and Professor Cheng Qunfeng of Beihang University, Academician Yu Shuhong and Professor Gao Huailing of the University of Science and Technology of China, and Researcher Wu Chengtie and Researcher Zhu Yufang of the Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, jointly undertook the National Key R&D Program project “Key Scientific Problems in Room-Temperature Preparation of Ceramics Inspired by Biological Processes” (2021YFA0715700), aiming to develop room-temperature and low-temperature ceramic preparation technologies to overturn the traditional high-temperature sintering of ceramics.

To systematically present this work and outline future directions, commissioned by the editorial board of the Advanced Forming and Processing Technology of Materials series, Academician Fu Zhengyi’s team wrote the book Bioprocessing-Inspired Fabrication Technology of Materials (Fu Zhengyi et al., Beijing: Science Press, 2025.1), the first review and outlook on the concept, research approaches and international progress of this direction. The book has 11 chapters: Chapter 1 introduces the proposal of the concept; Chapters 2-7 cover biomineralization-inspired fabrication technologies, including synthesis and preparation based on living biological platforms, natural biomass induction, recombinant protein regulation and protein-like substance induction, and summarize fabrication technologies based on mineralization mechanisms; Chapter 8 covers photosynthesis-inspired material synthesis; Chapter 9 covers material synthesis and preparation based on other natural biological system platforms; Chapter 10 covers bioprocessing-inspired micro additive manufacturing; and Chapter 11 summarizes the book and looks ahead to future directions.

Many interesting phenomena in biological systems remain to be explored, and the principles behind them require scientific explanation. It is believed that in the near future, bioprocessing-inspired fabrication technology of materials will bring more breakthrough and disruptive advances, yielding fruitful results in the fabrication of structural and functional composites and greatly promoting the development of other disciplines.

Source note: This article is reproduced from an introductory article by Science Press, originally titled “Academician Fu Zhengyi’s Team: Bioprocessing-Inspired Fabrication Technology of Materials”, original link: https://m.163.com/dy/article/JQ1C8BGH0511DCTQ.html

专著 | Bioprocess Inspired Fabrication

Book by Academician Fu Zhengyi's Team: Bioprocessing-Inspired Fabrication Technology of Materials