Biomimetic adhesive materials with tailored properties

随着未来的技术创新朝着机器小型化和性能密度最大化的方向发展，我们作为工程师和科学家面临的挑战成为我们制造微米和纳米机器以及以我们通常无法处理的规模理解现象的能力。这项建议致力于在微观、纳米和分子水平上研究新型聚合物涂层和粘结剂材料的附着力和接触动力学，并获得关于这些涂层和粘结层在横向和法向应力/应变条件下性能的机械信息，以便将它们转化为有效的应用。该研究项目将从生物设计中寻找灵感，比如小蜥蜴-壁虎的脚垫。壁虎的脚垫上有数百万根像手指一样的纳米纤维，它们可以很容易和迅速地附着在几乎任何表面(无论是亲水还是疏水，粗糙还是光滑，干燥还是潮湿)，并同样容易和迅速地分离。相比之下，传统的工程胶粘剂需要仔细的表面处理，在水和其他污染物存在的情况下往往无法粘合。这项研究计划将分子水平的化学修饰技术与纳米和微观水平的表面图案化技术相结合，制备新型涂层和粘合薄膜，并进行详细的表面力(粘合和摩擦)测量，以表征这些仿生粘合材料。最终目标是发现和定义新的粘合剂和涂层策略和方法，以获得量身定做的性能，这些性能可以并入合成聚合物中，以实现坚固和适应性的结合。该计划致力于表面和界面科学与工程的前沿，将在微观、纳米和分子层面产生对化学品和材料以及生物医学应用具有技术意义的新知识，并为高素质的人员提供亟需的多学科培训，这将提高我们加拿大经济的竞争力，并造福人类。

As future technological innovations gear towards miniaturizing machines and maximizing performance density, our challenges as engineers and scientists become our ability to build micro- and nano-machines and understand phenomena at a scale we normally do not deal with. This proposal is devoted to investigating the adhesion and contact dynamics of new polymeric coating and adhesive materials at the microscopic, nanoscopic and molecular levels, and to obtaining mechanistic information about the performance of these coating and adhesive layers under lateral and normal stress/strain conditions in order to translate them for effective applications. The research program will seek inspirations from such biological designs as the foot pads of little lizards - geckos. Geckos, having millions of finger-like nanoscopic fibrils on their foot pads, can readily and rapidly attach to almost any surface (whether it be hydrophilic or hydrophobic, rough or smooth, dry or wet) and detach just as readily and rapidly. In contrast, conventional engineering adhesives require careful surface preparations, and often fail to adhere in the presence of water and other contaminants. This research program will combine chemical modification techniques at the molecular level and surface patterning at the nano- and micro-levels to fabricate new types of coating and adhesive thin films, and conduct detailed surface force (adhesion and friction) measurements to characterize these biomimetic adhesive materials. The ultimate goal is to discover and define novel adhesive and coating strategies and approaches for tailor-made properties that can be incorporated into synthetic polymers for robust and adaptable bonding. The program, working at the frontier of surface and interfacial science and engineering, will generate new knowledge at the microscopic, nanoscopic, and molecular levels which have technological implications for chemicals and materials, and biomedical applications, and provide a much needed multi-disciplinary training to highly qualified personnel that will improve the competitiveness of our Canadian economy and benefit mankind as well.