Contentslistsavailableat ScienceDirect Chemical Engineering Journal journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cej Bioinspiredsuper-toughandmultifunctionalsoyprotein-basedmaterialvia afacileapproach FengLi a ,TaoLiu a ,WeidongGu a ,QiangGao a ,JianzhangLi a, ⁎ ,SheldonQ.Shi b, ⁎ a Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Tree Breeding by Molecular Design & MOE Key Laboratory of Wooden Material Science and Application, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China b Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, TX 76203, USA HIGHLIGHTS • A lipid bilayer-inspired soy protein- basedfilmwasproposedviaafacile process. • Thisfilmpossessedsuperiortoughness (24.54MJ/m 3 )andrapidself-healing ability. • A multifunctional responsiveness achievedtodetecthumidityortem- perature change. GRAPHICALABSTRACT ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Soyprotein Biomimetic materials Toughness Multifunctional materials ABSTRACT Withtheincreasinginterestanddemandforintelligent,multifunctionalmaterials,ajudiciousandfaciledesign is essential but still challenging in practical applications. Generally, biological materials perform multiple functionsbasedontheperfectsynergyandgreenmethodology.Multifunctional,self-assembledlipidbilayersare excellent sources of inspiration for the effective design of multifunctional materials. Biomaterials possess bio- compatibilityandbiodegradability,whichareidealoptionsforintelligentmaterials.Herein,withaninspiration from lipid bilayers, a delicately designed soy protein-based material with multiple functions is reported. This material exhibits superior toughness (24.54 MJ/m 3 ) and high stretchability (253.54%), and possesses an out- standingself-healingabilitywitharapidhealingtimeatambienttemperature.Itsintegratedtoughnessandself- healing ability are superior to those of most reported polymeric materials. In addition, the constructed lipid bilayer-like structure enables this soy protein-based material to act as a sensor that can detect various en- vironmental stimuli (humidity or temperature) through electrical and optical responses. The responsive per- formance of the soy protein-based material is investigated, which has shown good sensitivity and long-term stability. This soy protein-based material with multiple intelligent functions is potentially applicable in bioen- gineering,wearableelectronics,andsmartcoating. 1. Introduction Multifunctional materials possess intriguing characteristics that morethanonefunctionisintegratedinthematerial [1].However,the existing designs for the multifunctional materials commonly required complicatedandtediousprocesses.Multifunctionalbiologicalmaterials https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cej.2020.126700 Received27May2020;Receivedinrevisedform29July2020;Accepted16August2020 ⁎ Corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: lijzh@bjfu.edu.cn (J.Li), Sheldon.shi@unt.edu (S.Q.Shi). Chemical Engineering Journal 405 (2021) 126700 Available online 26 August 2020 1385-8947/ © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. T