Natural building blocks like proteins and hydroxyapatite (HA) are found in abundance. However, their effective utilization to fabricate environment-friendly, strong, stiff, and tough materials remains a challenge. This work reports on the synthesis of a layered material from entirely natural building blocks. A simple process to extract HA from bones, while keeping collagen intact, is presented. These HA nanocrystals have a high aspect ratio as a result of the extraction method that largely retains the pristine nature of the HA. To fabricate the materials, polymerized egg white is used to induce toughness to the crystals where it acts like a load transfer entity between the crystals. As shown by atomic force microscope modulus mapping, the result is a layered material with a modulus that ranges from 3 to 180 GPa. Furthermore, the material exhibits self-stiffening behavior. Hydrogen and ionic bonds are likely to regulate the chemical interactions at the egg white/HA interface and are likely to be responsible for the observed high toughness and stiffness, respectively. The use of the HA/egg white composite as printed scaffolds is also demonstrated together with their biocompatibility.
Keywords: 3D printing; egg white; hydroxyapatite; polymerization; primary amine.