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The research team says the new temporary adhesives can be useful in technical applications such as semiconductor manufacturing and pharmaceutical development.
Painter’s tape, bandage strips, and even sticky office notes are examples of products that adhere to surfaces but can be removed with relative ease. There’s only one drawback — to remove any of these adhesives, the glued surfaces need to be pulled apart from each other.
Dartmouth research has discovered a class of molecular materials that can be used to make temporary adhesives that don’t require force for removal. These non-permanent glues won’t be available as home or office supplies but they can lead to new manufacturing techniques and pharmaceutical design.
“This temporary adhesive works in an entirely different way than other adhesives,” said Katherine Mirica, an assistant professor of chemistry at Dartmouth. “This innovation will unlock new manufacturing strategies where on-demand release from adhesion is required.”
The Dartmouth research focuses on molecular solids, a special class of adhesive materials that exist as crystals. The molecules in the structures are sublimable, meaning that they shift directly from a solid to a gas without passing through a liquid phase.
The ability to bypass the liquid phase is the key to the new type of temporary adhesives. The adhesive sticks as a solid but then turns to a vapor and releases once it is heated in a vacuum environment.
“The use of sublimation — the direct transition from solid to vapor — is valuable because it offers gentle release from adhesion without the use of solvent or mechanical force,” said Mirica.
Previous Dartmouth research was the first to identify how molecular solids can act as temporary adhesives. According to new research, published in the academic journal Chemistry of Materials, the class of molecules that can be used to make these new-generation materials is wider than previously thought.
“We’ve expanded the list of molecules that can be used as temporary adhesives,” said Nicholas Blelloch, a PhD candidate at Dartmouth and first author of the paper. “Identifying more materials to work with is important because it offers expanded design strategies for bonding surfaces together.”
The research team says the new temporary adhesives can be useful in technical applications such as semiconductor manufacturing and drug development.
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