Gecko-grip material aims to be the end of glue

Geckos have long inspired scientists and super-hero fans alike with their ability to scamper up vertical walls and cling to ceilings with a single toe. In recent years, people have attempted to create materials that match those spectacular abilities, in the hope of creating new advanced adhesives, or even car braking systems.

Now US chemists claim to have made one based on nanotubes that it is 10 times stickier than some gecko feet. Even more impressively, like a real gecko foot, it can also be easily unstuck with a tug in the right direction.

Gecko's superhero toes are covered in microscopic hairs, known as setae, with even smaller branches at the tips, called spatulae.

These ensure that a gecko's foot has a large surface area in contact with any surface, maximising the weak but ever-present attraction between adjacent molecules known as the van der Waals force.

Glass gripper

Chemists led by Liming Dai of University of Dayton, Ohio and Zhong Lin Wang of Georgia Institute of Technology, made their artificial setae by growing nested carbon nanotubes on a silicon wafer.

They controlled the growth process to make a forest of vertical nanotube trunks turning into a canopy of tangled ends on top. The curly entangled mess acts like natural spatulae – when pressed against a surface, they have a large contact area and hence a strong hold.

The new material was tested for stickiness on surfaces ranging from Teflon to sandpaper. Attached to a glass surface, a 4mm² piece of the material can support over 1600 grams when pulled roughly parallel to the surface (see video, right).

That is around 10 times better than some species of gecko and three times better than the best artificial competitor.

But removing a pad of the material is simple, unlike some rival materials. Pulling it perpendicular to a surface means only the tips of the nanotubes remain in contact with the surface, and the setae will easily loosen their grip. A weight of 160 grams on the tiny sample is enough to do that. ... - newsci