Adhesive technology underwater "Superglue"

Background

In adhesion science, water or moisture has traditionally been treated as surface contaminants or weak boundary layers, since they deteriorate adhesives through a variety of complex mechanisms including erosion, plasticization, swelling, and hydrolysis of adhesive polymers. Contrary to the difficulties faced by man, in the sea, there is a variety of marine organisms capable of adhering to all type of wet surfaces including mussels that stick firmly on rocks, sandcastle worms that live in tubes comprised of sand, shell fragments bonded together with a proteinaceous glue, and barnacles that glue calcareous base plates to rocks and ship bases.

Advantages

Our technology uses an innovative approach that allows it to accomplish superior application performance and attain better economy compared to others in the field.

• The technology does NOT require sophisticated chemical synthesis, specific set of skills, or expensive ingredients for fabrication, thus ensuring lower capital investment and cost of production and higher returns and profitability
• It employs a modular design where different adhesive component controls different aspect/behavior of the adhesive, allowing easy engineering of the adhesive, i.e. to control the adhesive’s curing profile and mechanical properties, to meet the need of specific applications
• Compared to others, our adhesive enables in situ fast joining with improved strength, longer durability, and wider applicability

Potential applications

The technology is applicable to adhering, bonding, joining, repairing, patching, and lamination in the manufacture, the marine, and the biomedical industries. Potential applications include but not limited to:

• Repairing of wet tissue
• Patching of leaks (i.e. underwater oil pipe line)
• Underwater constructions