Scientists in London have created the world’s thinnest pasta, according to a study published in the journal Nanoscale Advances. But if you’re hoping to cook yourself up a bowl of cacio e pepe with these uber-thin noodles, you’ll be disappointed because this pasta isn’t for eating.
Appropriately dubbed “nanopasta,” these threadlike fibers are 200 times thinner than human hair, measuring just 372 nanometers in diameter. For some context, the next thinnest pasta known to man—su filindeu, or “threads of God,”—is 1,000 times thicker than these new noodles.
Experts call the creation a great step forward in the development of sustainable nanomaterials. The pasta was created not for a great pesto dish, but rather as an environmentally friendly approach to crafting nanofibers which can be used for many different purposes in medicine and other industries.
Traditionally, the creation of starch nanofibers involved extracting and purifying the starch from plant cells. However, that method consumes an inordinate amount of energy and water, necessitating a more sustainable technique. This new approach uses regular cooking flour purchased from a grocery store, which is potentially a much more sustainable form of creation.
“To make spaghetti, you push a mixture of water and flour through metal holes. In our study, we did the same except we pulled our flour mixture through with an electrical charge. It’s literally spaghetti but much smaller,” Adam Clancy, the study’s co-author, explained of the process.
To craft the revolutionary nanofibers, scientists used a method called electrospinning, which uses electrical currents to develop remarkably thin fibers. They quickly found that the flour solution was integral to the process. But instead of water, they mixed the flour with formic acid, since the acid dissolves the complex spiral structures that comprise starch molecules. This process is essentially what happens when you boil pasta, but in this situation it allows the pieces to form extremely thin fibers.
Gareth Williams, Clancy’s co-author, reiterated that there’s no chance you’ll be served his pasta anytime soon.
Because it’s so thin, the professor explained, “It would overcook in less than a second, before you could take it out of the pan.” However, the development is a remarkable step in the world of sustainable medical creation. The fact that functional nanofibers could be rendered from a flour compound may have sweeping implications across the medical and industrial fields.
