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Gluing gels

A nanoparticle solution

Nature Materials volume 13, pages 231–232 (2014)Cite this article

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Synthetic polymer gels with certain surface chemistries can be glued together by a simple and inexpensive method that uses commercially available silica nanoparticles. Biological tissues can also be joined by this nanotechnological route, eliminating the need for sutures, additional adhesives or chemical reactions.

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Figure 1: Gluing gels with nanoparticles.
Figure 2: Strong adhesion between diverse surfaces7.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eric A. Appel is in the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA,

    Eric A. Appel

  2. Department of Chemistry, Oren A. Scherman is in the Melville Laboratory for Polymer Synthesis, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK,

    Oren A. Scherman

Authors
  1. Eric A. Appel
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  2. Oren A. Scherman
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Correspondence to Eric A. Appel or Oren A. Scherman.

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Appel, E., Scherman, O. A nanoparticle solution. Nature Mater 13, 231–232 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3893

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