Designing bioinspired electroactive underwater glues

The aim of this project is to gain insight into how we can create all-conjugated underwater glues based on CPE’s complex coacervates with good cohesive, adhesive, and opto-electrochemical properties.

Recently, we have developed a water-processable CP polyanion, that, upon mixing with polycation, yields a soft macromolecular CPE complex with recoverable viscoelastic properties after mechanical deformation.

These initial results sparked our curiosity if we can create underwater glues from conjugated polymers using our chemical designs. Through synthetic chemistry we will systematically vary the chemical design of the CPE’s.

Combined with a variation of key stimuli (pH, ionic strength and ion valency, stoichiometry) we will create insight into how these factors govern the mechanical and opto-electronic properties of conjugated polymer underwater glues.

This project’s purpose is to enable a next generation of soft, adaptable, and biocompatible interfacial or matrix materials for electrostimulation of cells or tissue, allowing for features such as modulus-matching between inorganic components and cells, adaptability to and electrostimulation of cell growth, electrostimulation of in-vivo body tissue for therapeutic purposes or microbial electrosynthesis.