![]() Nanotube adhesives created to replace solder for holding together electronics components could also act as heat sinks. Carbon nanotubes are highly conductive to electricity and have promising thermal properties, Dai notes. Other applications of the adhesive may take better advantage of carbon nanotubes’ properties than robotics would. A robot could have feet that heat up when they get clogged, shedding dirt so that it can keep walking. Dai is developing adhesive nanotube arrays coated with proteins that change their shape in response to temperature changes. These structures can readily be functionalized with proteins and other polymers. But “we’re not going to stick silicon wafers to robot feet,” says Dhinojwala.ĭai says that carbon nanotubes’ versatility may help overcome the dirt problem. Carbon nanotubes are easy to grow on silicon wafers creating large areas of the adhesive wouldn’t be a problem. And nanotube adhesives will need to be grown on different substrates than those used so far. No one has demonstrated strong gecko-inspired adhesives that can do this. “We want a robot to take more than 50 steps in a dirty environment,” says Dhinojwala. However, says Dhinojwala, who works on carbon-nanotube adhesives as well, “we also need to solve other problems before they’re commercially viable.” Wall-climbing robots will require adhesives that work again and again without wearing out or getting clogged with dirt. The greater the adhesive strength, the better, says Ali Dhinojwala, a professor of polymer science at the University of Akron. Previously, researchers have shown that arrays of vertically aligned carbon nanotubes have similar interactions with a surface. These many weak interactions add up to strong adhesion over the area of the foot. Its branched structure more closely mimics the structures on gecko feet, which are covered with millions of microscale hairs that branch into many smaller hairs, each of which has a weak electrical interaction with a surface. However, it’s much stronger than previous nanotube adhesives. Gecko tape: Arrays of carbon nanotubes with a vertically aligned section (lower left) and a branched, tangled upper layer (lower right) mimic the structures of gecko feet but are 10 times more adhesive.ĭeveloped by a group led by Liming Dai, a professor of materials engineering at the University of Dayton, and Zhong Wang, director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Tech, the adhesive is not the first made from carbon nanotubes. And it works on a variety of surfaces, including glass and sandpaper. It’s 10 times more adhesive than the lizards’ feet and, like the natural adhesive, easy to lift back up. Now researchers have developed an adhesive made of carbon nanotubes whose structure closely mimics that of gecko feet. But it’s been difficult to design strong adhesives that can be lifted back up again. ![]() Adhesives that, like gecko feet, are dry, powerful, reusable, and self-cleaning could help robots climb walls or hold together electrical components, even in the harsh conditions of outer space. For years, materials scientists have been trying to catch up with geckos.
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