Recent progress in biomedical devices, wearable electronics, and soft robotics has generated a great demand for durable adhesives with tissue-mimetic mechanical properties.  Pressure sensitive adhesives (PSAs) are typically manufactured through exploratory mixing of polymers with various additives such as tackifiers and plasticizers to meet application specific requirements defined by tack stress, work of adhesion, bulk stiffness, and cohesive strength. These composite materials are difficult to fine-tune without changing chemical composition, which compounds the risk of low molecular weight additives leachability and property drift. To overcome these pitfalls, we have developed an adhesion-by-architecture platform for PSA engineering that allows establishing wide-range viscoelastic control in a neat additive-free material. By systematically varying side-chain length and grafting density in brush-like polymer networks we demonstrate independent control over elastic modulus and work of adhesion within several orders of magnitude without altering chemical composition. This approach to architecturally programmable adhesion readily translates to a variety of homopolymer chemistries and can be further advanced to graft-copolymer systems that demonstrate a combination of high tack and high cohesive strength. The graft copolymer architecture enhances the viscoelastic control to six independent architectural variables while physical crosslinks permit hot-melt preparation and molding.

Tissue-mimetic adhesives for wearable electronics

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

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