If you鈥檙e a fan of arts and crafts, you鈥檙e likely familiar with the messy, sticky, frustration-inducing nature of liquid glues. But researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces now have a brand-new way to weld squishy stuff together without the need for glue at all. They鈥檝e demonstrated a universal, 鈥渆lectroadhesion鈥� technique that can adhere soft materials to each other just by running electricity through them.
Source Article
ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
Corresponding author: Srinivasa R. Raghavan, Ph.D.
Transcript
Narrator: Trying to glue soft materials together can lead to sticky situations 鈥� literally! But what if you didn鈥檛 have to use glue at all?
Srini Raghavan鈥檚 team holds soft stuff together just by running electricity through it. The process is called 鈥渆lectroadhesion.鈥� It may sound fancy, but all it requires are some household batteries. Charges on atoms or polymer chains form bonds when electricity is run through them. As long as the materials have opposite charges, they鈥檒l stick! The team used the technique to build 3D structures out of squishy capsules. They also used electroadhesion to collect the charged capsules with this 鈥渇inger robot.鈥� This work could someday help create less painful stitches or sutures.
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