Improved Bond Strength of Cyanoacrylate Adhesives Through Nanostructured Chromium Adhesion Layers

Abstract

The performance of many consumer products suffers due to weak and inconsistent bonds formed to low surface energy polymer materials, such as polyolefin-based high-density polyethylene (HDPE), with adhesives, such as cyanoacrylate. In this letter, we present an industrially relevant means of increasing bond shear strength and consistency through vacuum metallization of chromium thin films and nanorods, using HDPE as a prototype material and cyanoacrylate as a prototype adhesive. For the as received HDPE surfaces, unmodified bond shear strength is shown to be only 0.20 MPa with a standard deviation of 14 %. When Cr metallization layers are added onto the HDPE at thicknesses of 50 nm or less, nanorod-structured coatings outperform continuous films and have a maximum bond shear strength of 0.96 MPa with a standard deviation of 7 %. When the metallization layer is greater than 50 nm thick, continuous films demonstrate greater performance than nanorod coatings and have a maximum shear strength of 1.03 MPa with a standard deviation of 6 %. Further, when the combination of surface roughening with P400 grit sandpaper and metallization is used, 100-nm-thick nanorod coatings show a tenfold increase in shear strength over the baseline, reaching a maximum of 2.03 MPa with a standard deviation of only 3 %. The substantial increase in shear strength through metallization, and the combination of roughening with metallization, may have wide-reaching implications in consumer products which utilize low surface energy plastics.

Flexible Osteogenic Glue as an All‐In‐One Solution to Assist Fracture Fixation and Healing

“…[ 7 ] This leaves little working time for surgeon as well as limited tolerance to error during splicing practice. Notwithstanding the efforts devoted in optimization of cyanoacrylate, [ 8 ] restriction from fundamental chemistry could hardly be overcome. Therefore, new crosslinking strategy is to be introduced for breakthrough.…”

Instant tough bonding of hydrogels for soft machines and electronics

“…2B ) evidences bulk rupture of the hydrogel without bonding failure at the gel/target surface interface (see also video S2). We observe this behavior for all investigated interface classes [polymers, elastomers, leather, bone, and chromium-coated metals and glass ( 27 )] and thus find an average fracture toughness of 736 ± 112 J/m 2 for PHEMA, 1427 ± 89 J/m 2 for PAAm/alginate, and 2208 ± 186 J/m 2 for PVA ( Fig. 2C ).…”