When it comes to underwater adhesion, shellfish are the true experts. Mussels, barnacles and oysters attach to rocks with apparent ease. Yet our man-made glues often fail when trying to stick in wet environments. “Our current adhesives are terrible at wet bonding, yet marine biology solved this problem eons ago,” said Jonathan Wilker, a professor of chemistry and materials engineering at Purdue University. “Mussels, barnacles and oysters attach to rocks with apparent ease. In order to develop new materials able to bind within harsh environments, we made a biomimetic polymer that is modeled after the adhesive proteins of mussels.”
New findings, funded by the Office of Naval Research, showed that the bio-based glue performed better than 10 commercial adhesives when used to bond polished aluminum. When compared with the five strongest commercial glues included in the study, the new adhesive performed better when bonding wood, Teflon™ and polished aluminum. It was the only adhesive of those tested that worked with wood, and it far out-performed the other adhesives when used to join Teflon. The findings were detailed in a research paper published online and in a print issue of the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.