Metal-Coordination: Using One of Nature's Tricks to Control Soft Material Mechanics

TitleMetal-Coordination: Using One of Nature's Tricks to Control Soft Material Mechanics
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2014
AuthorsHolten-Andersen N., Jaishankar A., Harrington M.J, Fullenkamp D.E, DiMarco G., He L., McKinley G.H, Messersmith P.B, Lee K.Y
JournalJournal of Materials Chemistry B
Volume2
Issue17
Pagination2467-2472
Abstract

Growing evidence supports a critical role of dynamic metal-coordination crosslinking in soft biological material properties such as self-healing and underwater adhesion. Using bio-inspired metal-coordinating polymers, initial efforts to mimic these properties have shown promise. Here we demonstrate how bio-inspired aqueous polymer network mechanics can be easily controlled via metal-coordination crosslink dynamics; metal ion-based crosslink stability control allows aqueous polymer network relaxation times to be finely tuned over several orders of magnitude. In addition to further biological material insights, our demonstration of this compositional scaling mechanism should provide inspiration for new polymer material property-control designs.

DOI10.1039/C3TB21374A

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