A team of biomedical engineers and materials scientists at Northwestern University have invented a glue that behaves like the adhesive on a Post-it note, with the advantage that it also works on wet surfaces. Once out of the lab, it may drive the creation of a host of medical, military, industrial, and consumer products.
Inspired by the sticking strategies of both geckos and mussels, the glue is called Geckel. “We borrowed useful properties of both animals,” says Phillip Messersmith, who announced the findings in June.
The creators of Geckel used electron-beam lithography to drill nanoscopic holes in a thin polymer film, creating a mold. They filled the holes with liquid silicon and allowed it to solidify; when the film was peeled away, there remained a dense array of tiny pillars much like gecko hairs. When coated with a polymer that mimics the mussel’s adhesive protein, the pillars can stick to wet surfaces. The glue remains sticky in or out of water, even after being pulled away and reattached more than a thousand times.
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