Biomineralization has long been a source of inspiration and frustration for researchers in a wide variety of disciplines from ecologists and dental practitioners to materials scientists. An amazing variety of organisms have the capacity to produce inorganic mineral complexes through biomineralization. In this context, different organisms use proteins, peptides, and polysaccharides as templates to control the nucleation, growth, and morphology of structures containing minerals and metals. Due to lack of clarity in the field, distinctions are provided between the various biomineralization processes as Type I, II, and III biomineralization. Synthetic biomineralization is an emerging field in which these processes are applied to unnatural substrates to create useful inorganic materials with applications in a variety of fields. A comprehensive overview of silica and titanium oxide biomineralization is given, covering the major achievements this sub-field has attained since its emergence. The ground-breaking discoveries are focused based on the templating agent used and the mechanisms that are proposed in the field are discussed. Synthetic biomineralization are led, which are more recently demonstrated to have feasible applications in energy, electronics, construction, and biotechnology. These possibilities are discussed alongside prospects based on the current trend of research in the field.

A new method is developed to produce mesoporous titania thin films at room temperature using the enzyme papain in a dip-coating procedure, providing low-cost titania films in a sustainable manner. Quartz crystal microbalance, positron annihilation Doppler broadening and lifetime spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction are used to determine the deposition and structural properties of the films. As-deposited films have low densities ρ ≈ 0.6 g cm⁻³, contain small micropores and proteins, and exhibit corrugated surfaces. Annealing at temperatures of 300 °C or higher leads to the destruction and evaporation of most of the organic material, resulting in a thickness decrease of 50–60%, more pure titania films with increased density, an increase in micropore size and a decrease in the concentration and size of atomic-scale vacancies. Up to 50 layers could be stacked, allowing easy control over the total layer thickness. Based on these titania films, first test devices consisting of natural dye-sensitized solar cells are produced, that show photovoltaic activity and indicate possibilities for low-cost, accessible, organic production of solar cells. Given the wide range of other applications for titania, this new method is a promising candidate for improving the fabrication of those products with respect to cost, sustainability, and production speed.

We report the use of commercial laundry powder as a biocatalyst for a range of lipase-catalysed reactions including (trans)esterification, ester hydrolysis and chemoenzymatic epoxidation reactions. The enzymatic laundry powder exhibited excellent stability and recyclability, making it a readily available and cheap biocatalyst for chemical transformations.