In nature, the attachment disk of ivy (Hedera helix) can form a strong adhesion with large trees, walls, etc. through nanoparticles secreted by air roots as a bond, and this strong adhesion ability can withstand millions of times the weight of the attachment disk itself, thus providing solid support for the overall climbing of plants. Inspired by the natural world, the team of Academician Yu Shuhong of the University of Science and Technology of China and the team of Professor Feng Xue of Tsinghua University have successfully developed a biomimetic nanobonding technology, which is expected to be applied to tissue engineering, human-machine integration and other biomedical fields.
This biomimetic nanohesion uses a strong hydrogel as the matrix, with active nanoparticles as the interface link, which can be instantly adhered to any substrate material. Since the active nanoparticles are bound to the substrate by physical bonds such as van der Waals forces, hydrogen bonds, and electrostatic interactions, there is no need for any physical or chemical pretreatment of the substrate material. In fact, for many engineering products, especially microelectronics for human-machine combination, complex pretreatment greatly increases the time and economic cost, so the ready-to-use performance of biomimetic nanobonding is of great significance in practical applications. The results were published in the top international journal Nature Communications under the title "Designing nanohesives for rapid, universal, and robust hydrogel adhesion", and the first author is Pan Zhao, associate researcher of Hangzhou Medical Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Fu Qiqi from the Flexible Electronics Technology Laboratory of Tsinghua University and Dr. Wang Mohan from the Affiliated Stomatology Hospital of Anhui Medical University.
Unlike conventional glues, which use organic polymers as interfacial bonds to form bonds, in this work, the surface of hard inorganic nanoparticles is modified with carboxyl-rich active modification, which acts like microscopic "buttons" to tightly fix soft hydrogels on different solid surfaces. The hydrogel as the adhesive matrix is carefully designed as a double network structure, and through the sacrificial network action of agarose, it can absorb the destructive force of the external adhesion interface, thereby enhancing the durability and strength of the bond. This method is clearly different from the traditional glue bonding method, which brings new possibilities for bonding technology.
The universality of biomimetic nanobonding is not limited to engineering materials, but also applies to biological tissues. Whether it is soft or hard tissue, or even the surface of tissue contaminated by receptor fluid, blood, grease, etc., biomimetic nanobonding shows excellent out-of-the-box performance. Based on this widely applicable adhesion performance, the authors designed an implantable vascular bonding winding pulse monitor. In the study, they used biomimetic nanoadhesives to adhere pre-prepared flexible strain sensors to the femoral artery of Labrador dogs, forming a kind of in situ vascular pulse monitor. Comparison with ECG ECG signals shows that the signals transmitted by this pulse monitor are extremely accurate. This implantable vascular bonding winding pulse monitor is expected to be used to monitor the vascular anastomosis after major surgeries such as arterial bypass grafting and organ transplantation, and reflect the health status of the reconstructed blood vessels in the patient's body in real time.
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Original link:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40753-5 Source: Frontiers in Polymer Science - Early View