Scientists Develop New 'Super' Adhesive

Scientists Develop New 'Hyper' Adhesive Researchers at UBC's Okanagan campus and the University of Victoria hope that a newly developed "hyper adhesive" formula will make many products we use daily—held together by adhesives, from protective clothing to medical implants and residential plumbing—stronger and more corrosion-resistant. A team of chemists and composite materials researchers discovered a broadly applicable method for bonding plastics and synthetic fibers at the molecular level through a procedure called cross-linking. Cross-linking becomes effective when the adhesive is exposed to heat or long-wave UV light and creates strong bonds that are resistant to both impact and corrosion. Even with minimal cross-linking, materials bond tightly together. Professor Abbas Milani, Director of the UBC Materials and Manufacturing Research Institute and lead researcher at the Okanagan node of the Composites Research Network, says: "The adhesive proved effective particularly on high-density polyethylene, an important plastic used in bottles, pipes, geomembranes, plastic lumber and many other applications." He adds: "In fact, commercially available adhesives had no effect whatsoever on these materials, which makes our discovery an impressive foundation for a wide range of important applications." Professor Jeremy Wulff of UVic, who led the design of this new class of cross-linking materials, collaborated with UBC Survive and Thrive Applied Research to discover how it performs in real-world applications. Wulff states: "The UBC STAR team was able to advance the material step by step and test its applicability in some incredible applications, including ballistic protection for first responders." Wulff notes that this discovery already plays an important role in Comfort-Optimized Materials for Operational Resilience, Thermal Transport and Survivability (COMFORTS), a network of researchers from UBC, UVic and the University of Alberta collaborating to create high-performance body armor. Wulff says: "Using this cross-linking technology, we can strongly bond different fabric types together to create next-generation clothing for demanding environments. At the same time, the cross-linker provides additional material strength to the fabric itself." Milani is quick to note that an incredibly strong bonding agent is only the beginning of what it can do. Milani says: "Imagine paints that never peel or waterproof coatings that never need resealing. We're even beginning to think about using it as a way to bond many different types of plastics to each other—a major challenge in plastic and composite recycling. There is real potential to make some of our everyday items stronger and less prone to failure, something many chemists and composite materials engineers are working toward."

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The research was published recently in the journal Science and was co-sponsored by Victoria-based company Epic Ventures and Mitacs Canada. Reference: "A broadly applicable cross-linker for aliphatic polymers containing C–H bonds" by Mathieu L.

Lepage, Chakravarthi Simhadri, Chang Liu, Mahdi Takaffoli, Liting Bi, Bryn Crawford, Abbas S. Milani and Jeremy E. Wulff, 15 November 2019, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.aay6230

By University Of British Columbia Okanagan Campus December 8, 2019 - https://scitechdaily.com/forget-super-glue-scientists-develop-newhyper-glue/