title: Marine Bioinspired Underwater Contact Adhesion.
abstract: Marine mussels and barnacles are sessile biofouling organisms that adhere to a number of surfaces in wet environments and maintain remarkably strong bonds. Previous synthetic approaches to mimic biological wet adhesive properties have focused mainly on the catechol moiety, present in mussel foot proteins (mfps), and especially rich in the interfacial mfps, for example, mfp-3 and -5, found at the interface between the mussel plaque and substrate. Barnacles, however, do not use Dopa for their wet adhesion, but are instead rich in noncatecholic aromatic residues. Due to this anomaly, we were intrigued to study the initial contact adhesion properties of copolymerized acrylate films containing the key functionalities of barnacle cement proteins and interfacial mfps, for example, aromatic (catecholic or noncatecholic), cationic, anionic, and nonpolar residues. The initial wet contact adhesion of the copolymers was measured using a probe tack testing apparatus with a flat-punch contact geometry. The wet contact adhesion of an optimized, bioinspired copolymer film was ∼15.0 N/cm(2) in deionized water and ∼9.0 N/cm(2) in artificial seawater, up to 150 times greater than commercial pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) tapes (∼0.1 N/cm(2)). Furthermore, maximum wet contact adhesion was obtained at ∼pH 7, suggesting viability for biomedical applications.
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: Sean K
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Clancy
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sodano
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: Dylan J
authors.initials: DJ
authors.lastname: Cunningham
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: Sharon S
authors.initials: SS
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: Piotr J
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: Zalicki
authors.affiliation: Green Materials and Process Group, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology , Cheonan, Chungnam 31056, South Korea.
authors.forename: Seunghan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Shin
authors.affiliation: Marine Science Institute, University of California Santa Barbara , Santa Barbara, California 93106, United States.
authors.forename: B Kollbe
authors.initials: BK
authors.lastname: Ahn
mesh_terms: D000268:Adhesiveness; D000818:Animals; D040761:Biomimetic Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D049872:Bivalvia / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D017155:Wettability
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins; C037403:adhesive protein, mussel