The thinnest spaghetti in the world, measuring around 200 times thinner than a human hair, has been developed.
A team from UCL has successfully created the world’s thinnest spaghetti, which is approximately 200 times slimmer than a human hair.
This spaghetti isn’t meant for culinary purposes; rather, it was designed due to the extensive applications that ultra-thin strands of material, known as nanofibers, possess in fields like healthcare and industry.
Starch-based nanofibers, which are produced by many green plants for glucose storage, show great potential for uses such as wound healing bandages (the nanofiber mats are highly porous, allowing moisture in while keeping out bacteria), scaffolding for bone regeneration, and drug delivery systems. However, their production typically involves extracting and purifying starch from plant cells, a process that consumes a lot of energy and water.
The researchers propose a more sustainable approach: generating nanofibers directly from a starch-rich source like flour, which is commonly used to make pasta.
In their recent publication in Nanoscale Advances, the team outlines the creation of spaghetti with a diameter of just 372 nanometers (billionths of a meter) through a method called electrospinning. This technique involves pulling threads of flour mixed with liquid through a needle’s tip using an electric charge. Beatrice Britton, a master’s chemistry student at UCL, spearheaded this study.
Co-author Dr. Adam Clancy (UCL Chemistry) explained: “In regular pasta-making, you push a mixture of water and flour through metal openings. In our experiment, we achieved the same by drawing our flour mixture through an electrically charged process. It’s essentially spaghetti, just on a much smaller scale.”
The paper also mentions the next thinnest known pasta, known as su filindeu (“threads of God”), which is handmade by artisans in Nuoro, Sardinia. This pasta lunga (“long pasta”) is approximately 400 microns wide—1,000 times thicker than this newest electrospun version, which, at 372 nanometers, is narrower than certain light wavelengths.
This innovative “nanopasta” frames a nanofiber mat that spans about 2 cm wide, making it visually identifiable, though each individual fiber is so fine that it escapes detection by standard visible light cameras or microscopes. The researchers measured their widths using a scanning electron microscope.
Professor Gareth Williams (UCL School of Pharmacy) commented: “Nanofibers, especially those derived from starch, are promising candidates for use in wound dressings due to their high porosity. Additionally, these fibers may serve as scaffolds for tissue regeneration as they mimic the extracellular matrix, which supports cell structures.”
Dr. Clancy further stated: “Starch is a viable material since it is abundant and renewable — it ranks as the second largest biomass source on Earth after cellulose — and it is biodegradable, allowing decomposition in the body.”
“However, extracting starch necessitates extensive processing. We’ve demonstrated that it’s feasible to produce nanofibers more straightforwardly using flour. The next phases will involve examining the properties of this product, like its degradation rate, how it interacts with cells, and whether it can be produced on a larger scale.”
Professor Williams added: “Sadly, I don’t think it’s practical as edible pasta since it would overcook in less than a second before it could even be removed from the pan.”
In the electrospinning process, the needle containing the mixture and the metal plate receiving the mixture form two ends of a battery. When an electric charge is applied, the mixture completes the circuit by streaming out of the needle onto the metal plate.
Using a starch-rich source like white flour is more complex than working with pure starch, as the presence of impurities like protein and cellulose thickens the mixture, preventing fiber formation.
The researchers opted for flour mixed with formic acid rather than water since the acid helps dismantle the large starch spirals (or helices). The tightly-packed helices are too large to become nanofibers. (Cooking similarly affects starch by breaking down helices, making it easier to digest.)
The formic acid evaporates as the nanofiber travels through the air toward the metal plate.
Moreover, the researchers heated the mixture for several hours before gradually cooling it to ensure it reached the correct consistency.
