Metal-coordination: using one of nature's tricks to control soft material mechanics

Niels Holten-Andersen; Aditya Jaishankar; Matthew J. Harrington; Dominic E. Fullenkamp; Genevieve DiMarco; Lihong He; Gareth H. McKinley; Phillip B. Messersmith; Ka Yee C. Lee

doi:10.1039/C3TB21374A

Metal-coordination: using one of nature's tricks to control soft material mechanics†

Niels Holten-Andersen,‡*^a Aditya Jaishankar,^b Matthew J. Harrington,^c Dominic E. Fullenkamp,^d Genevieve DiMarco,^e Lihong He,^f Gareth H. McKinley,^g Phillip B. Messersmith^h and Ka Yee C. Leeⁱ

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* Corresponding authors

^a Department of Chemistry, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA

^b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
E-mail: adityaj@mit.edu

^c Department of Biomaterials, Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, 14424 Potsdam, Germany
E-mail: Matt.Harrington@mpikg.mpg.de

^d Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
E-mail: dominic-fullenkamp@fsm.northwestern.edu

^e Department of Chemistry, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
E-mail: vividcolorsglg@yahoo.com

^f Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
E-mail: lihong-he@northwestern.edu

^g Department of Biomedical Engineering and Chemistry of Life Processes Institute, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA
E-mail: philm@northwestern.edu

^h Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
E-mail: gareth@mit.edu

ⁱ Department of Chemistry, Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, and the James Franck Institute, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
E-mail: kayeelee@uchicago.edu

Abstract

Growing evidence supports a critical role of dynamic metal-coordination crosslinking in soft biological material properties such as self-healing and underwater adhesion. Using bio-inspired metal-coordinating polymers, initial efforts to mimic these properties have shown promise. Here we demonstrate how bio-inspired aqueous polymer network mechanics can be easily controlled via metal-coordination crosslink dynamics; metal ion-based crosslink stability control allows aqueous polymer network relaxation times to be finely tuned over several orders of magnitude. In addition to further biological material insights, our demonstration of this compositional scaling mechanism should provide inspiration for new polymer material property-control designs.

This article is part of the themed collections: Emerging Investigators and 2014 Journal of Materials Chemistry B Hot Articles

Journal of Materials Chemistry B

Metal-coordination: using one of nature's tricks to control soft material mechanics†

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Metal-coordination: using one of nature's tricks to control soft material mechanics

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