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Instant 'Superglue' for Stretchable Batteries and Soft Robots

A team from Austria's Johannes Kepler University Linz has demonstrated an instant hydrogel bonding method that can be used for soft electronic devices from stretchable batteries, self-powered compliant circuits, and autonomous electronic skin for triggered drug delivery. The new, tough hydrogels strongly attach - within seconds - to plastics, elastomers, leather, bone, and metals.

Topics:
Automation Coatings & Adhesives Electronics & Computers Materials Medical Robotics Sensors

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    Transcript

    00:00:01 Scientists are using hydrogels, which are gels mostly made up of water, to make the next generation of soft electronics and soft robots. Their inspiration is nature, where hydrogels abound. We are mostly a hydrogel--from our tissues and muscles to our brain. How our softer parts combine with harder materials like our bones and teeth makes us special.

    00:00:26 In the lab, there are many advantages to using synthetic hydrogels. After all, they squash, stretch and adapt like animals and humans do. But the trick is how to attach hydrogels onto all kinds of materials the way our bodies can. Now researchers have come up with a fast and simple method to form an instant tough bond between hydrogels and a variety of soft to hard materials.

    00:00:52 Others have tried to use pure Cyanoacrylates, the main ingredient found in super glue, but they form brittle, non-stretchable layers. Instead, the team’s new method uses a glue made up of cyanoacrylate diluted with a non-solvent. They spread this mixture onto tough hydrogels. Mixed with the non-solvent, the adhesive doesn’t dissolve, which allows for a very thin layer of glue to form. This protective shell, delays polymerization

    00:01:22 just long enough, so when the materials are slightly pressed together, the non-solvent helps transport the glue into the layers as it evaporates, resulting in an instant tough bond. Here, a hydrogel and an elastomer, a rubbery material, are combined together with the new glue. You can stretch them by 1000% and they still don’t come apart. And the layer of glue is so thin,

    00:01:47 that it doesn’t disturb the mechanics of the materials. In peel tests, Even with the toughest hydrogels used, the gel itself cracks but not the area where the two materials were actually bonded together. Next, researchers built several prototypes using this glue. An electronic skin complete with battery, bluetooth, processor, heaters, and temperature sensors. The components are bonded onto a hydrogel,

    00:02:14 which wraps around the skin. Because hydrogels are permeable, you could deliver water-soluble drugs through the gel to the surface of the skin. Hydrogel disc replacement in the spine is already happening. But with the new adhesive you could assemble this mix of hard and soft structures much more quickly. So with tough hydrogels and this new super glue, we could see a wave of soft technologies

    00:02:40 and soft robots that are even more life-like. The speed and simplicity of the process allows for rapid prototyping, which is great news for the exploding DIY community of softbot makers.