By Michael Irving
May 02, 2024
https://newatlas.com/materials/spiderma ... -adhesive/
You can stop skulking around labs trying to get bitten by radioactive spiders – a new breakthrough could make it easier than ever to get Spider-Man’s wall-crawling powers. Scientists in Singapore have created a strong and reusable adhesive out of a shape-memory polymer, sticking to and detaching from surfaces by changing the temperature.
The polymer is called E44 epoxy, and at room temperature it’s a stiff and glassy plastic, but once heated up it becomes soft and rubbery. In that state, it can ooze into the tiny crannies and crevices of another surface, allowing it to form extra-strong bonds if it’s then cooled down. If you later want to remove it, all you need to do is heat it back up.
In tests conducted by scientists at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore, the adhesive was able to grab onto a range of different textures and didn’t leave any sticky residue behind. Through experimentation, the team found that the best shape for the material was a series of hair-like structures called fibrils, each a few millimeters wide.
For example, one setup used fibrils with a cross section of 19.6 mm2 (0.03 in2), with each being able to hold up to 1.56 kg (3.4 lb). Adding more fibrils increases the maximum weight the material can hold, with a palm-sized pad of 37 fibrils holding a 60-kg (132-lb) weight.
