Imagine if a material would arrange itself into a shape suited for its application, for instance, a catalyst that maximizes its own surface area for improved efficiency or a micro-actuator that forms appendages to grab nearby objects. This is the promise of self-assembly: making complex, functional materials by letting matter shape itself. Yet, not all matter that self-assembles into interesting forms turns out to have a useful function in its final shape. Researchers of the Self-Organizing Matter group recently discovered that ion exchange allows them to separate the self-assembly process from the resulting material. Their findings were published in Advanced Materials on November 16 and highlighted in Nature and Nature Reviews Materials.
source https://phys.org/news/2020-12-self-assembled-architectures-functional-materials.html
