Sandcastle worm (Phragmatopoma californica) Credit: Fred Hayes
It has the potential for biomedical and non-biological applications. Areas such as tissue repair, dental adhesives and other surface adhesion applications, industrial and commercial – which are often required under adverse conditions, such as salty sea water and in aqueous solutions containing organic impurities – could benefit from this glue, which replicates the adhesion strategy of the Sandcastle worm (Phragmatopoma californica), a segmented marine invertebrate commonly found along the California coast.
Known for constructing hive-like shelters in colonies out of grains of sand glued together by a protein adhesive, sandcastle worms, along with mussels and other glue-secreting inhabitants of the intertidal zone, have served as inspiration for an adhesive that can perform in wet, submerged and otherwise inhospitable conditions. “Sandcastle worms secrete a robust underwater adhesive to build a tube reef (sandcastle) in harsh intertidal environments, where wind and wave velocity often exceed 25 meters per second,” said Kollbe Ahn, UCSB’s Marine Science Institute. “We successfully replicated the strong wet-contact adhesion of the bio-adhesion featuring nanoscopic chemical and miroscopic porous structures,”Ahn added.
“The processing of this wet glue does not need pre-immersive dry curing or applied compressing pressure that are normally required in conventional studies,” Zhao continued. The synthetic glue also promotes adhesion between a variety of surfaces, including plastics, glasses, metals, wood and biological tissues. Additionally, the microarchitecture of the synthetic glue, which mimics the porous structure of sandcastle worm adhesive, makes it more resistant to cracking.
“Porous structures, or cellular structures, are ubiquitous in nature, such as in cork, bones and coral, and they are found to increase fracture energy of these materials,” Zhao said. “Here in the context of wet adhesion, we found that the porosity was reminiscent of the porous structures of sandcastle worm cement, and significantly improved wet adhesion.”
Through studies of mussels and sandcastle worms, the researchers hope to create and optimize an adhesive that not only bonds quickly and performs well under a variety of conditions and with various surfaces, but also eliminates the need for organic solvents, which results in a more environmentally friendly adhesion process. http://www.news.ucsb.edu/2016/016421/cling-warriors
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