Summary Reader Response Draft #3

 

geCKo Materials, a company that produces artificial gecko material, came out of Professor Mark Cutkosky’s lab in Stanford (Muller, 2023, 0:40). It is an adhesive that is inspired by the way geckos can scale walls and move about on the ceiling. Its website states that the key feature of this adhesive is that it mimics the gecko’s foot structure, which allows it to cling to almost any rough or smooth surface. According to a YouTube video, when observing a toe from a gecko under a microscope, it is made up of very fine structures called spatulas which are less than one micrometre across. Although it is currently impossible to replicate this intricate branching structure, the tape uses a crude approximation of it. Instead of spatulas, the tape is covered with rows of sharp silicon wedges with tips that are around one micrometre (Muller, 2023, 5:14). Unlike how sticky tape works, where the tape sticks due to the chemicals found on one surface of the tape, gecko adhesive is a dry adhesive that is easy to remove without the use of force at all, leaving no marks or residue (geCKo Materials,2023).

 

Drawing inspiration from the remarkable adhesive capabilities of gecko feet, geCKo Materials are poised to revolutionize adhesion in the future as it offers various industries solutions to their different bonding needs, as it is easy to remove, sustainable, and ultra-strong.

 

The gecko material presents multiple advantages, one of them is how it is easy to remove compared to conventional tape. It is designed with biomimicry in mind. Mimicking the one-of-the-kind structure of gecko feet, it relies similarly on Van der Waals forces for adhesion. Van der Waals forces are generally weaker compared to other chemical bonds like ionic and covalent bonds, as they rely on just the attraction between neutral atoms (Muller, 2023, 3:18). As explained by Professor Cutkosky in the video, for the material to have Van der Waals forces to work with, a shear force must be applied to the surface, giving the material its adhesive properties. If it is pulled in any other way other than allowing the wedges to bend, it will not stick. Thus, making this special adhesive easy to remove. Quoted from Professor Mark Cutkosky, “…that’s important because if you’re a small robot trying to climb a wall, you can’t afford to have something like chewing gum on your feet, cause then every step you take is effort. What you want is something that only grabs when you need it to” (Muller, 2023, 1:30).

 

Another advantage that the gecko material has relying on just Van der Waals forces, is that it allows the material to be sustainable as well. Each time when conventional tape is removed, it leaves behind debris and loses its stickiness in the process. The gecko material, on the other hand, will not leave behind any sticky remnants after it has been removed, meaning that the material is reusable. On their website it is stated that it “can be reused 120,000 times without performance loss” (geCKo Materials, 2023). The reusability of the material will not only save costs but also act as a more sustainable alternative to typical adhesives as it eliminates the need for consumers to repeatedly replace the tape.

 

Lastly, the gecko material itself is ultra-strong in terms of how much weight it can support. Although it has been stated that Van de Waals forces are weaker compared to other chemical bonds, these forces can be relatively strong under certain circumstances. A brief explanation in the video explains that the main factors affecting Van de Waal forces are how close the molecules interact with each other and the surface area of contact. “One square inch of contact area can support the weight about four-and-a-half kilograms” (Muller, 2023, 8:08). To show an example of how strong the material is, Stanford made a robot called MicroTug, that just weights just 17 grams and the use of gecko adhesive, it was able to pull a weight that is 1200 times (20kg) of itself. To put it in perspective, it would be like a human tugging a blue whale (Muller, 2023, 7:14). Therefore, the strength of this material is another of its impressive properties and is nothing to be scoffed at.

 

However, this special adhesive can be quite costly to obtain for valid reasons. To design and create the gecko material, it takes a very labour-intensive process. Firstly, a razor blade is precisely driven into a wax mold at a specific angle. Then, a silicon polymer, called Sylgard 170, is poured into the wax mold before a backing material is attached to the still liquid silicon. Lastly, it is cured at 23°∁ for 24 hours (Muller, 2023, 5:30). In addition to the challenging production process, the wax mold that was cut into can only be used a few times before the quality of the adhesive declines, and the whole process needs to be repeated (Muller, 2023, 6:00). These intricate techniques used shows that the material is not viable for mass production and as such can cost the material price to sky-rocket. On their website, one 101mm x 76mm sheet of gecko material costs USD 1000. As such, normal consumers would steer towards the cheaper option of sticky tape that only costs a few bucks rather than getting the expensive gecko material.

 

To summarise, there are multiple proven reasons for the gecko material to be able to revolutionize adhesion in the future in industries such as manufacturing and construction with its multiple properties. Their more well-known clients include Honda, Ford and NASA, to handle delicate parts in their production (geCKo Materials, 2023). However, there are issues like mass production and cost that cause the general public to opt for cheaper options. Therefore, once these problems are tackled, it can be a big step for gecko materials to play a pivotal role in fostering a greener, stronger, easy-to-remove alternatives in the field of adhesion.

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References

geCKo Materials. (2023) Nature-Inspired Adhesive Technology https://www.geckomaterials.com/

 

Muller, D. [Veritasium]. (2023, Jan 23). The Stickiest *Non-Sticky* Substance [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vS0TuIPoeBs&ab_channel=Veritasium

 

Russell, A. P., Stark, A. Y., & Higham, T. E. (2019). Integrative and comparative biology. The integrative biology of gecko adhesion: historical review, current understanding, and grand challenges. https://par.nsf.gov/servlets/purl/10118696

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Image
  geCKo Materials, a company that is producing artificial gecko material, came out of Professor Mark Cutkosky’s lab in Stanford. It is an adhesive that is inspired by the way geckos can scale walls and move about on the ceiling. The key feature of this adhesive is that it mimics the gecko’s foot structure, which allows it to cling to almost any rough or smooth surface. If a toe from a gecko’s is placed under a microscope, it can be observed that it is made up of very fine structures called spatulas which are less than one micrometre across. Although currently it is impossible to replicate this intricate branching structure, the tape makes use of a crude approximation of it. Instead of spatulas, the tape is covered with rows of sharp silicon wedges with tips that are around one micrometre. Unlike how sticky tape works, where the tape sticks due to the chemicals found on one surface of the tape, gecko adhesive is a dry adhesive that is easy to remove without the use of force at all...
Read more