The inspiration by marine mussels is widely spread in the adhesion community. Mainly l-3,4-dihydroxyphenylalanin (Dopa), which is a highly abundant amino acid derivative in the proteins of the mussel gluing system, was found to have a positive effect on the adhesion and cohesion ability of the mussel. This provided the rational of polymeric adhesives presenting catechol moieties to constitute adhesion and improve cohesion of a rich set of adhesives, coatings and hydrogels. In this context, catechol containing moieties, such as dopamine or hydrocaffeic acid, have been extensively employed to functionalize polymer scaffolds. Furthermore, the direct polymerization of catechol containing monomers, like dopamine (meth)acrylate, was successfully utilized to build mussel-inspired structures. A distinct polymerization pathway has been introduced by Horsch <i>et al.</i>, polymerizing phenol and thiol containing peptide unimers via Michael-type polyadditions. For this, the phenol moiety of tyrosine residues was enzymatically oxidized to form quinones to which thiols of cysteine residues could cleanly add. The resulting polymer presents adhesive thiol-catechol-connectivities (TCC) as linkages in each repeat unit. This mussel-inspired polymerization leads to artificial mussel foot proteins with impressive wet adhesion capabilities. However, a peptide-based unimer as well as the usage of enzymes could be a potential bottle neck for upscaling of these materials. Meanwhile the polymerization of peptide unimers can be chemically activated and a fully synthetic pathway of the mussel-inspired polymerization has been described exploiting non-peptidic synthetic monomers, which enable ease of scalability and offer access to a rich material library of adhesive polymers.

Pushing the mussel-inspired polymerization closer toward application: A scalable material platform from commodity monomers

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.