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Piszter G, Bálint Z, Kertész K, Szatmári L, Sramkó G, Biró LP. Breeding Polyommatus icarus Serves as a Large-Scale and Environmentally Friendly Source of Precisely Tuned Photonic Nanoarchitectures. INSECTS 2023; 14:716. [PMID: 37623426 PMCID: PMC10455773 DOI: 10.3390/insects14080716] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/14/2023] [Revised: 08/11/2023] [Accepted: 08/15/2023] [Indexed: 08/26/2023]
Abstract
The colour of the butterfly wing serves as an important sexual and species-specific signal. Some species produce structural colouration by developing wing scales with photonic nanoarchitectures. These nanostructures are highly conservative, allowing only a ±10 nm peak wavelength deviation in the reflectance spectra of the blue structural colour in natural Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus) populations. They are promising templates of future artificial photonic materials and can be used in potential applications, too. In this work, we present methodology and infrastructure for breeding laboratory populations of Common Blue as a cost-effective and environmentally friendly source of nanostructures. Our technology enables the production of approximately 7500 wing samples, equivalent to 0.5-1 m2 of photonic nanoarchitecture surface within a year in a single custom-made insectarium. To ascertain the reliability of this method, we compared reflectance properties between different populations from distant geographic locations. We also provide genetic background of these populations using microsatellite genotyping. The laboratory population showed genetic erosion, but even after four generations of inbreeding, only minimal shifts in the structural colouration were observed, indicating that wild Common Blue populations may be a reliable source of raw material for photonic surfaces.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gábor Piszter
- Centre for Energy Research, Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Konkoly-Thege Miklós út 29-33, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Zsolt Bálint
- Centre for Energy Research, Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Konkoly-Thege Miklós út 29-33, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
- Hungarian Natural History Museum, Baross utca 13, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Krisztián Kertész
- Centre for Energy Research, Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Konkoly-Thege Miklós út 29-33, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Lajos Szatmári
- Hungarian Natural History Museum, Baross utca 13, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
- ELKH-DE Conservation Biology Research Group, Egyetem tér 1, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
| | - Gábor Sramkó
- ELKH-DE Conservation Biology Research Group, Egyetem tér 1, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
- Department of Botany, University of Debrecen, Egyetem tér 1, H-4032 Debrecen, Hungary
| | - László Péter Biró
- Centre for Energy Research, Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Konkoly-Thege Miklós út 29-33, H-1121 Budapest, Hungary
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Piszter G, Nagy G, Kertész K, Baji Z, Kovács K, Bálint Z, Horváth ZE, Pap JS, Biró LP. Investigating the Effect of Reflectance Tuning on Photocatalytic Dye Degradation with Biotemplated ZnO Photonic Nanoarchitectures Based on Morpho Butterfly Wings. MATERIALS (BASEL, SWITZERLAND) 2023; 16:ma16093584. [PMID: 37176465 PMCID: PMC10179795 DOI: 10.3390/ma16093584] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/20/2023] [Revised: 04/28/2023] [Accepted: 05/04/2023] [Indexed: 05/15/2023]
Abstract
Photonic nanoarchitectures of butterfly wings can serve as biotemplates to prepare semiconductor thin films of ZnO by atomic layer deposition. The resulting biotemplated ZnO nanoarchitecture preserves the structural and optical properties of the natural system, while it will also have the features of the functional material. The ZnO-coated wings can be used directly in heterogeneous photocatalysis to decompose pollutants dissolved in water upon visible light illumination. We used the photonic nanoarchitectures of different Morpho butterflies with different structural colors as biotemplates and examined the dependence of decomposition rates of methyl orange and rhodamine B dyes on the structural color of the biotemplates and the thickness of the ZnO coating. Using methyl orange, we measured a ten-fold increase in photodegradation rate when the 20 nm ZnO-coated wings were compared to similarly coated glass substrates. Using rhodamine B, a saturating relationship was found between the degradation rate and the thickness of the deposited ZnO on butterfly wings. We concluded that the enhancement of the catalytic efficiency can be attributed to the slow light effect due to a spectral overlap between the ZnO-coated Morpho butterfly wings reflectance with the absorption band of dyes, thus the photocatalytic performance could be changed by the tuning of the structural color of the butterfly biotemplates. The photodegradation mechanism of the dyes was investigated by liquid chromatography-mass spectroscopy.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gábor Piszter
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Gergely Nagy
- Surface Chemistry and Catalysis Department, Institute for Energy Security and Environmental Safety, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Krisztián Kertész
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Zsófia Baji
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Krisztina Kovács
- Radiation Chemistry Department, Institute for Energy Security and Environmental Safety, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Zsolt Bálint
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
- Department of Zoology, Hungarian Natural History Museum, 13 Baross St., 1088 Budapest, Hungary
| | - Zsolt Endre Horváth
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - József Sándor Pap
- Surface Chemistry and Catalysis Department, Institute for Energy Security and Environmental Safety, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
| | - László Péter Biró
- Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklos St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary
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