Reusable dry adhesives based on ethylene vinyl acetate copolymer with strong adhesion

摘要

This work proposed the design and fabrication method for T-shaped dry adhesives based on stretchable ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) copolymer, with strong normal adhesion strength up to 70 N cm(-2). As fabricated adhesives based on the inexpensive soft replication process have comprehensive advantages including easy demolding applicable for various curable materials; self-cleaning characteristic based on excellent nonwetting characteristics to both water and oil; reversible adhere/detach cycling for reusability. The flexible and transparent EVA dry adhesive films were readily fabricated to be novel dry-adhesive coatings decorated on various substrates and shapes. We also explored the adhere and detach mechanism for the significantly enhanced adhesion of T-shaped EVA microstructures, which indicated the increased contact area and the friction dissipation between the undercut and the substrate contribute to the adhesion enhancement, while the excellent elastic deformation of EVA may play an important role for adhesion enhance during the pulling-off process. These results showed the great potential of high-performance T-shaped EVA-based polymer dry adhesives for practical applications. (c) 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2019, 136, 47296.