Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Powerful new adhesive stays strong from freezing to boiling temperatures

Amazing stuff! This what I call a true superglue!

"... The new adhesive belongs to a class known as supramolecular adhesives, which are made up of molecular components specially designed to self-assemble into strong bonds during curing. One is a ring-shaped molecule called a crown ether, which can wrap around the second component, a small protein produced by bacteria. ...
The team tested it out by gluing steel plates together, and found that they could withstand up to 22 Megapascals of shearing force. Most impressively, that strength worked not only at room temperature but anywhere from -196 °C (-320.8 °F) up to 200 °C (392 °F). It proved promising on other materials as well, and even worked underwater. ...
The tight bond drives water out of the protein, which means that when the temperature drops no ice crystals can form and crack open the material, as often happens with other glues. This could also help explain why it works underwater. ..."

From the abstract:
"A crown-ether-protein adhesive was synthesized by host–guest molecular engineering. The internal dynamic molecular interactions endow the adhesives with extraordinary adhesion performance over a wide temperature range from −196 to 200 °C. Extremely strong adhesion, long-lasting adhesion, and biomedical sealing have been achieved. This work offers a promising molecular engineering strategy to fabricate robust supramolecular adhesives for applications under extreme conditions.
The inherently tenuous adhesion strength and limited environmental tolerance of supramolecular adhesives severely restrict their application scenarios. It is challenging for the development of robust adhesives with extreme temperature tolerance. Herein, we report a new type of temperature-resistant crown-ether-protein (CEP) adhesive by harnessing synergistic host–guest molecular interactions between engineered crown ether and protein building blocks. The outputs of CEP adhesive demonstrate ultrahigh shearing adhesion strength of ≈22 MPa over a wide temperature range from −196 to 200 °C, superior to other established supramolecular or polymeric adhesives. The temperature-induced phase transition and internal bound water stabilized the system and led to superb adhesion under extreme conditions. Thus, this work pioneers a molecular engineering approach for the generation of adhesives with tailored applications in extreme settings."

Powerful new adhesive stays strong from freezing to boiling temperatures




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