High Strength Underwater Bonding with Polymer Mimics of Mussel Adhesive Proteins

When it comes to underwater adhesion, shellfish are the true experts. Mussels, barnacles, and oysters attach to rocks with apparent ease. Yet our man-made glues often fail when trying to stick in wet environments. Results described herein focus on a copolymer mimic of mussel adhesive proteins, poly(catechol-styrene). Underwater bonding was examined as a function of parameters including polymer molecular weight and composition. In doing so, several surprising results emerged. Poly(catechol-styrene) may be the strongest underwater adhesive found to date. Bonding even exceeded that of the reference biological system, live mussels. Adhesion was also found to be stronger under salt water than deionized water. Such unexpected findings may contradict an earlier proposal in which charged amino acids were suggested to be key for mussel adhesive function. Taken together, these discoveries are helping us to both understand biological adhesion as well as develop new materials with properties not accessed previously.