Publications by Ran Zhao | EPFL Graph Search

Bio‐Informed Porous Mineral‐Based Composites (Small 7/2025)

Wiley2025

Bio-Informed Porous Mineral-Based Composites

Certain biominerals, such as sea sponges and echinoderm skeletons, display a fascinating combination of mechanical properties and adaptability due to the well-defined structures spanning various length scales. These materials often possess high density nor ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2024

Additive Manufacturing of Bioinspired Mineral-Based Composites

Ran Zhao

Biominerals are used by natural organisms for example as structural supports and optical sensors. They are produced from a limited number of elements and under ambient conditions. Nevertheless, they often possess excellent mechanical properties and sometim ...

EPFL2024

Osmosis-driven stiffening of structured hydrogels

Esther Amstad, Ran Zhao, Alexandra Thoma

Plant cells harness osmotic pressures to stiffen their leaves through strong turgor pressures. Key to this osmosisdriven stiffening is the confinement of liquids within semipermeable membranes that can regulate the transport of water molecules and ions. In ...

Elsevier2024

Additive Manufacturing of Porous Biominerals

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Gaia De Angelis, Ran Zhao, Tianyu Yuan

Nature fabricates hard functional materials from soft organic scaffolds that are mineralized. To enable an energy-efficient locomotion of these creatures while maintaining their structural stability, nature often renders parts of these minerals porous. Unf ...

WILEY-V C H VERLAG GMBH2023

3D printing of living structural biocomposites

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Ran Zhao, Lorenzo Lucherini

Nature fabricates organic/inorganic composites under benign conditions, yet, in many cases, their mechanical properties exceed those of the individual building components it is made from. The secret behind the evolutionary pivot is the unique ability of na ...

ELSEVIER SCI LTD2023

Reinforcing hydrogels with in situ formed amorphous CaCO3

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Ran Zhao, Tianyu Yuan, Huachuan Du, Michael David Kessler

Hydrogels are often employed for tissue engineering and moistening applications. However, they are rarely used for load-bearing purposes because of their limited stiffness and the stiffness-toughness compromise inherent to them. By contrast, nature uses hy ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2022

Load-bearing hydrogels ionically reinforced through competitive ligand exchanges

Esther Amstad, Matteo Hirsch, Ran Zhao, Mathias Steinacher

Fast advances in soft robotics and tissue engineering demand for new soft materials whose mechanical properties can be interchangeably and locally varied, thereby enabling, for example, the design of soft joints within an integral material. Inspired by nat ...

ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY2021