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Have you ever wondered how those hard-shelled mollusks known as mussels anchor themselves to rocks on lake and river bottoms? How they stick to sea walls, or resist pounding waves?
Scientists at the University of Chicago have done more than come up with some answers. They've actually created a synthetic1 gel that mimics2 the mussel's sticky, self-healing properties. Their invention could have far-reaching medical and industrial applications.
Niels Holten-Anderson - a post-doctoral scholar at the University of Chicago - says mussels do two things really well. They excrete a sticky adhesive3 and they can use that natural glue to repair the anchoring bond.
University of Chicago
University of Chicago Chemistry professor Ka Yee Lee, postdoctoral scholar Niels Holten-Andersen and team have invented a new synthetic mussel-inspired material that exhibits both strength and reversibility.
"And the important thing to remember is that there are no cells. There is no live or living activity taking place inside these materials. The material is basically a dead material, just like our hair," says Holten-Anderson. "So this capacity to re-heal itself is completely automatic, and it's not relying on any energy input4 from living cells."
Holten-Anderson, his University of Chicago colleagues and a team of international scientists worked on how to turn what mussels create naturally into a synthetic material. They zeroed in on the chemistry of what the mollusks secrete5 and discovered metal mixed inside their thin, hold-fast fibers6. Holten-Anderson says iron is a key ingredient that makes the adhesive strong and flexible.
"The unique thing is that you can pull them apart and if you leave them be, they can find their partners again and re-heal, and that's where the original strength of the healing comes from."
Steve Koppes
Mussels generate their own self-healing sticky material, which allows them to attach to rocks and to repair tiny tears caused by breaking waves and sand abrasion7, but the elastic8 gel attached to this one was created in the laboratory.
Holten-Anderson and colleagues set out to replicate9 that in the laboratory using a synthetic polymer or a simplified version of a string of mussel protein molecules10. They succeeded when they pre-mixed the polymer with metal salts at low pH.
"You instantly get an initiation11 of these self-healing gel-like, sticky materials as soon as you do this basically step-wise process of mixing things," he says, "and then increase the pH potentially mimicking12 what happens in the natural case anyway."
Iron is the metal available to mussels in the environment. Holten-Anderson says scientists can expand that pallet and experiment with other metals.
"We've shown so far that a metal such as titanium, for example, which is interesting from the bio-medical side of things with implants13 materials and so forth14, that we can actually use titanium atoms too to cross in these materials and those materials seem to have even stronger, even higher strength than the iron based materials."
Holten-Anderson expects the nature-inspired material will have practical medical and industrial uses. A patent is pending15 on how to make the gel, which is described online in the Proceedings16 of the National Academy of Sciences.
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1
synthetic
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adj.合成的,人工的;综合的;n.人工制品 | |
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2
mimics
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n.模仿名人言行的娱乐演员,滑稽剧演员( mimic的名词复数 );善于模仿的人或物v.(尤指为了逗乐而)模仿( mimic的第三人称单数 );酷似 | |
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3
adhesive
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n.粘合剂;adj.可粘着的,粘性的 | |
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4
input
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n.输入(物);投入;vt.把(数据等)输入计算机 | |
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5
secrete
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vt.分泌;隐匿,使隐秘 | |
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6
fibers
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光纤( fiber的名词复数 ); (织物的)质地; 纤维,纤维物质 | |
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7
abrasion
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n.磨(擦)破,表面磨损 | |
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8
elastic
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n.橡皮圈,松紧带;adj.有弹性的;灵活的 | |
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9
replicate
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v.折叠,复制,模写;n.同样的样品;adj.转折的 | |
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10
molecules
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分子( molecule的名词复数 ) | |
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11
initiation
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n.开始 | |
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12
mimicking
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v.(尤指为了逗乐而)模仿( mimic的现在分词 );酷似 | |
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13
implants
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n.(植入身体中的)移植物( implant的名词复数 ) | |
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14
forth
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adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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15
pending
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prep.直到,等待…期间;adj.待定的;迫近的 | |
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16
proceedings
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n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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