A research group led by Professor Fan Hailong of Hokkaido University and Professor Gun Cheng Ping has developed a new adhesive that can be used repeatedly and quickly and strongly in seawater.
Marine-attached organisms such as mussels and barnacles can adhere firmly to rocks in seawater by secreting an adhesive called an "adhesive protein."On the other hand, most artificial adhesives adhere strongly to materials in the air, but cannot be used in water or in the sea.
The research group focused on the fact that positive (+) charged cationic sites and sites called aromatic rings are arranged next to each other in the mussel adhesive protein, and the cationic sites and aromatic ring sites are arranged next to each other. The polymer compound was synthesized.The obtained polymer compound acted as an adhesive in seawater, and was able to bond various solids such as stone, glass, and plastic strongly and quickly.
Its adhesive strength is very strong, up to about 60 kilopascals (withstands a weight of 1 tons per square meter of adhesive surface), and it can be peeled and re-bonded many times.On the other hand, in the polymer compound in which the cationic moiety and the aromatic ring were randomly arranged, the above-mentioned strong adhesion was not observed.That is, it was found that the strong adhesion of this compound in seawater was derived from the structure in which the cationic moiety and the aromatic ring were arranged next to each other.
This study is the first in the world to report the development of an adhesive that can be used repeatedly in seawater.The developed material can be used as a temporary fixing agent and a repair agent for damage in seawater, and it is expected that concrete production in seawater using this technology will also be possible.
Paper information:[Nature Communications] Adjacent unsubstituted – aromatic sequences yield strong electrostatic adhesion of hydrogels in seawater
