Clever design makes sticky tape that’s strong but easily removed

A technique to modify sticky tape impressed by kirigami, the Japanese artwork of paper reducing, may make it 60 instances stronger, whereas remaining straightforward to peel off.

There are two predominant sorts of adhesives: robust ones which might be laborious to take away, comparable to duct tape, and people that may be simply peeled off, comparable to sticky notes. What’s lacking is an adhesive that mixes the properties of the 2 – one that’s sturdy however simply eliminated when wanted, says Michael Bartlett at Virginia Tech.

Bartlett and his colleagues have give you an answer primarily based on kirigami. “Our inspiration was to make use of the geometry, or the reducing of the tape, to manage its properties with out having to revamp the chemistry,” he says.

To create the tape, the workforce laser-cut three sides of a rectangle in a repeated sample in a strip of sticky tape, to create flaps (see photograph). In case you peel it off a floor so that you encounter the uncut facet of the rectangle first, it’s straightforward to separate.

Nevertheless, the workforce discovered that it was a lot tougher to take away the tape if you happen to peel in the other way. As an alternative of 1 easy movement, each time you encounter a lower within the tape you must flip round and return on your self to separate it from the floor. This problem provides it its excessive energy: the researchers discovered that this straightforward modification may enhance the adhesion of the tape by an element of 60. “Meaning we will basically take a chunk of fabric like a Publish-it observe and make it as robust as duct tape,” says Bartlett.

The tape might be helpful in conditions the place you want a excessive adhesion power in a selected path, comparable to hanging a photograph body. What’s extra, the workforce discovered that it might probably follow a spread of supplies, together with metal, glass, plastic and Teflon, and even works underwater.

Sooner or later, Bartlett says that these modified tapes might be used within the manufacture of robots and electronics that will profit from trouble-free disassembly.

“What’s elegant about [this] work is the shockingly easy resolution,” says Jamie Paik on the Swiss Federal Institute of Expertise in Lausanne. “In contrast to earlier approaches, this technique doesn’t require any particular mixture of supplies, manufacturing processes or moulds.”