Scientists Make Powerful Underwater Glue Inspired by Barnacles and Mussels
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Scientists make powerful underwater glue inspired by barnacles and mussels:
If you have ever tried to chip a mussel off a seawall or a barnacle off the bottom of a boat, you will understand that we could learn a great deal from nature about how to make powerful adhesives. Engineers at Tufts University have taken note, and today report a new type of glue inspired by those stubbornly adherent crustaceans in the journal Advanced Science.
Starting with the fibrous silk protein harvested from silkworms, they were able to replicate key features of barnacle and mussel glue, including protein filaments, chemical crosslinking and iron bonding. The result is a powerful non-toxic glue that sets and works as well underwater as it does in dry conditions and is stronger than most synthetic glue products now on the market.
"The composite we created works not only better underwater than most adhesives available today, it achieves that strength with much smaller quantities of material," said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts School of Engineering, director of the Tufts Silklab where the material was created, and corresponding author of the study. "And because the material is made from extracted biological sources, and the chemistries are benign - drawn from nature and largely avoiding synthetic steps or the use of volatile solvents - it could have advantages in manufacturing as well."
Journal Reference:
Marco Lo Presti, Giorgio Rizzo, Gianluca M. Farinola, et al. Bioinspired Biomaterial Composite for AllWaterBased HighPerformance Adhesives [open], Advanced Science (DOI: 10.1002/advs.202004786)
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