The world’s thinnest spaghetti was created by a group of researchers led by University College London. In a publication on Nanoscale Advances, they present the process which led to the production of spaghetti with an average diameter of 372 nanometers (billionths of a meter).
“(…) the team describes making 372 nanometer (billionths of a meter) spaghetti using a technique called electrospinning, in which threads of flour and liquid are pulled through the tip of a needle under the effect of an electric charge”explains UCL.
A promising material
The objective of these researchers, however, was not to invent a new food, but rather to develop a new material that could have interesting applications in fields such as medicine. More precisely, the researchers want to offer an alternative to starch nanofibers.
“Starch nanofibers – produced by most green plants to store excess glucose – are particularly promising and could be used in bandages to aid wound healing (as nanofiber mats are very porous, allowing water and humidity while preventing bacteria from entering), as a scaffold for bone regeneration and for drug delivery”explains University College London.
It’s not a food
However, the production of these starch nanofibers, via the extraction of plant cells, requires a lot of energy and a lot of water. And the idea of UCL researchers is to create nanofibers from an ingredient rich in starch: flour. They were able to create a 2 cm nanofiber carpet which is therefore visible to the naked eye. However, the fragments made with flour can only be observed using a scanning electron microscope, because of their fineness.
Dr Adam Clancy, a chemist at UCL, says the next step now is to study the properties of this material. “We would like to know, for example, how quickly it disintegrates, how it interacts with cells and whether it is possible to produce it on a large scale”he indicated. In any case, as pasta, these nanospaghetti would be useless. In fact, they would be overcooked in less than a second.
- A group of researchers from University College London used a technique called electrospinning to create the world’s thinnest spaghetti
- They did not create these 372 nanometer (billionths of a meter) pastes to eat them, but to develop an alternative to starch nanofibers, which have great potential in the medical field.
- Now, researchers want to study the properties of this new material
