December 23, 2024
3 minimum read
Chemists seek better bandages to create world’s smallest pasta
Researchers seeking better bandages are creating ultra-thin fibers of starch

A bowl of plain noodles (not pictured, you can’t see the world’s tiniest bunch of pasta).
The thinnest pasta ever made (let’s call it “nanotini”) has an average diameter of 372 nanometers and requires only two ingredients: flour and formic acid. The latter is a caustic agent typically sprayed by excited ants, which is why researcher Adam Clancy smelled his creation before eating it.
Consuming anything pickled in formic acid is generally not recommended. But Clancy, a chemist at University College London, relied on his understanding of the odor threshold of acids, the lowest concentration of a substance at which the human nose can detect it. Clancy believed that if the pasta had no aroma, the acid content was too low to be dangerous. Satisfied, he bit into a chunk of Nanotini. “I know I’m not trying to self-experiment, but I made the world’s smallest pasta,” Clancy says. “I couldn’t resist.”
Clancy and his co-authors recently shared their pasta recipe. With nanoscale advanceswe’re not trying to create something for an Italian restaurant. They are investigating the potential of starch nanofibers as next-generation bandages. Mats made of these fibers have pores that allow water to pass through, but are too small for bacteria, Clancy says.
About supporting science journalism
If you enjoyed this article, please consider supporting our award-winning journalism. Currently subscribing. By subscribing, you help ensure future generations of influential stories about the discoveries and ideas that shape the world today.
The ideal wound dressing is more than a simple barrier. We also need to speed up recovery, said Mohsen Alishahi, a graduate student at Cornell University. He is researching nanofiber bandages made from starch derivatives and is not involved in the Nanotini project. “Developing wound dressings using natural materials such as starch can speed up wound healing,” says Alishahi. Because fibers are similar to the body’s microstructural network called the extracellular matrix, starch should encourage the growth of cells around the injury. And starch has another natural benefit. Starch is made by all kinds of green plants and is one of the most common organic compounds on earth.
Previously, nanofibers were made from refined starch from corn, maize, and rice. Clancy claims this is the first time this has been achieved using regular white flour, meeting the definition of the world’s smallest pasta. To make this, his team first dissolved flour in acid, which loosened the flour’s starch clumps and allowed the molecules to bind into thin threads.

The researchers used a scanning electron microscope to scan the mat with a focused beam of electrons, creating images based on the patterns of electrons that were deflected or bounced away. The individual strands are too thin to be clearly captured by any form of visible light camera or microscope.
Beatrice Britton/Adam Clancy
Next was a delicate heating and cooling sequence that lasted hours. This process is the “most interesting” aspect of the new study, says Penn State food scientist Greg Ziegler. He is researching starch nanofibers as a potential scaffold for cultured meat and was not involved in the new paper. Despite containing impurities from supermarket flour, the resulting liquid had “the right viscosity for spinning,” Ziegler said, referring to the pasta-making technique.

Hold the nanofiber mat between two fingers.
Beatrice Britton/Adam Clancy
Pasta makers typically shape the dough by slicing it or pushing it into small holes. But in this case, the starch molecule is electrospinning—pulled by an electric charge through a hollow needle tip. The liquid shot out horizontally from the needle and was drawn to a grounded plate several centimeters away. As the acid dried quickly during flight, the starch chains formed tight but invisible threads. Its width was so small that it could not be seen with the naked eye. What was visible was an off-white mat formed by fibers accumulating on the plate. These bendable mats looked like tracing paper, but instead of wood pulp, they were very small pieces of pasta all the way to the bottom. What’s the taste? “It definitely needs some seasoning,” Clancy says.