Engineers Design Stronger Tape Through the Art of Cutting
Applying specific paper cutting techniques to adhesive tape made the bond of the tape stronger by a factor of 60 while still allowing for easy removal by peeling in the opposite direction.
Adhesive tape fulfills many purposes, from quickly fixing household appliances to ensuring a reliable seal on a mailed package. When using tape with a strong bond, removing it may only be possible by scraping and prying at the tape's corners, hoping that surface pieces don’t tear away with the tape.
But what if you could make adhesives both strong and easily removable? This seemingly paradoxical combination of properties could dramatically change applications in robotic grasping, wearables for health monitoring, and manufacturing for assembly and recycling.