Nano-Noodles

Uh oh, spaghetti-o!

This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science.

Foodies know, there’s a type of pasta for every occasion! Not just meat or cheese – we’re talking filters, biofuels, even wound healing! Really! But how do they get ‘em that small?

Usually, we’d use nanofibers. But they’re expensive, and don’t taste that great.

So say buongiorno to Beatrice Britton and team at University College London! They brought pasta from the kitchen to the chemistry lab!

Britton spun flour and acid together at high speeds with electrical charges, creating… Nano-PASTA! Incredibly tiny noodles shrunken down ONE THOUSAND times smaller than previous nanofibers!

At this size, pasta can improve nanofiber technologies across multiple fields of research. Even better, nanopasta is biodegradable AND more affordable!

That’s PASTA-tively amazing!


Reference: Britton, B., Zhang, F., Anthony, D.B., et. al. Nanopasta: electrospinning nanofibers of white flour. Nanoscale Adv., 2024, 6, 6129 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1039/D4NA00601A