Researchers have succeeded in sticking together two supremely unsticky polymers — Teflon and cross-linked poly(dimethylsiloxane), the slippery coating used as backing paper for stickers.
The secret to their success lies in tetrapodal zinc oxide crystals: micrometre-scale structures (pictured) shaped rather like children's jacks. Strewing these between the polymers and heating the resulting sandwich to 100 °C for 40 minutes creates a kind of 'micro/nano Velcro'. The polymers can be peeled apart only by applying a force of about 200 Newtons per metre — more than that required to unstick Scotch tape.
Rainer Adelung and his team at the University of Kiel, Germany, did not stick the unstickable for glory alone. Stuck together, these surfaces will have applications in technologies such as membranes for separating liquids, and biomedical implants.
Adv. Mater. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201201780 (2012)
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Sticking the unstickable. Nature 489, 9 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/489009d
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/489009d
