DMREF/Collaborative Research: Switchable Underwater Adhesion through Dynamic Chemistry and Geometry

对于组织粘合和水下机器人等应用，对水下或潮湿表面的坚固附着力是一个巨大的挑战。当需要可切换粘接时，这一点尤其明显，这要求快速连接、高粘合能力和易于释放。虽然章鱼和贻贝等生物擅长水下粘合，但合成粘合剂远远落后，这是由于在化学、几何和材料属性如何相互作用控制水下可切换粘合方面存在基本知识差距。这一旨在革新和设计我们未来的设计材料奖(DMREF)旨在将贻贝启发的粘合化学与章鱼启发的粘合结构相结合，以在干燥和潮湿条件下快速切换粘合。这将加速并建立有关化学、几何和材料特性如何控制可切换粘合的基础知识，以改变用于潮湿和干燥环境中的硬质和软质基材的快速可切换粘合剂的设计。这一新知识将推动未来关键应用领域的经济和社会创新，从假肢和可穿戴传感器的瞬时组织粘合剂到机器人辅助手术、机器人抓取和拾取和放置制造。除了培训和指导实力雄厚的研究生外，研究团队还将开发受生物启发的粘合剂握持活动，以激励K-12学生追求科学和工程职业。此外，还将通过国家粘合会议上的职业发展小组，吸引未来粘合科学和工程领域的劳动力领导者。DMREF奖支持将水下动态粘合化学与活性粘合几何形状相结合的研究，以确定如何在水下切换粘合。这项工作的目标是提供所需的基本理解，以设计具有可调粘合强度、高粘合切换率和快速切换时间的粘合剂。这将通过将实验、模拟和机器学习整合到一个合作框架中来实现。这项研究将首次建立一种设计方法，将化学和几何的好处放大到一个单一的水下可切换粘合系统中。这种设计方法将通过释放与活性材料的界面并利用动态粘合化学增强几何结构的粘接强度来加速动态化学的切换。与之前研究化学或几何如何独立影响附着力的工作不同，这项工作将独特地确定动态化学和活性材料如何结合来控制附着力，为粘合剂设计提供新的范例。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Strong adherence to underwater or wet surfaces for applications like tissue adhesion and underwater robotics is a significant challenge. This is especially apparent when switchable adhesion is required which demands rapid attachment, high adhesive capacity, and easy release. While organisms like the octopus and mussel excel at underwater adhesion, synthetic adhesives lag far behind, which is due to a fundamental knowledge gap in how chemical, geometric, and material properties interact to control underwater switchable adhesion. This Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) award aims to incorporate mussel-inspired adhesive chemistry with octopus-inspired adhesive structures to rapidly switch adhesion in dry and wet conditions. This will accelerate and build the fundamental knowledge of how chemical, geometric, and material properties control switchable adhesion to transform the design of rapidly switchable adhesives for stiff and soft substrates in wet and dry environments. This new knowledge will advance future economic and societal innovations in critical applications from transient tissue adhesives for prosthetic and wearable sensors to robot-assisted surgery, robotic gripping, and pick-and-place manufacturing. In addition to training and mentoring strong graduate students, the research team will develop bio-inspired adhesive gripping activities to inspire K-12 students to pursue science and engineering careers. This will be complemented by engaging future workforce leaders in adhesion science and engineering through career development panels at national adhesion conferences.This DMREF award supports research to combine underwater-based dynamic adhesive chemistry with active adhesive geometry to determine how adhesion can be switched underwater. The goal of this work is to provide the fundamental understanding needed to design adhesives with tunable adhesion strength, high adhesion switching ratios, and rapid switching times. This will be achieved by integrating experiments, simulations, and machine learning into a cooperative framework. This research will establish for the first time a design methodology that amplifies the benefits of chemistry and geometry into a single underwater switchable adhesive system. This design methodology will provide opportunities to speed up the switching of dynamic chemistry by releasing the interface with active materials and enhancing the adhesion strength of geometric structures with dynamic adhesive chemistry. In contrast to prior work which has studied how chemistry or geometry independently influences adhesion, this work will uniquely determine how dynamic chemistry and active materials combine to control adhesion, providing new paradigms in adhesive design.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.