11 Apr 2022 --- Engineers at the University of Irvine, US, have invented a packaging insulator material inspired by squid skin. The design could, in future, keep beverages hot and protect other products by regulating heat through reconfigurable metal structures that can reversibly separate from one another and come back together under different strain levels. The research, published in Nature Sustainability, sought to replace the metalized polymer films widely used for packaging, which feature static infrared reflecting properties, with “green and low-cost alternative materials” that have desirable dynamic thermoregulability.
