The proposed technology holds the promise of delivering an adhesive product and technology that is self-cleaning, re-usable and re-attachable. It can be used as toe pads, gloves, tapes or other novel applications. Commercial pressure-sensitive adhesives consist of a sticky polymeric layer and make intimate contact with surface asperities. This team demonstrated in their laboratory fibrous adhesives can exhibit similar adhesion property to commercial adhesives, but with self-cleaning capability. The proposed tasks aim to catalyze the establishment of a new business that focuses on developing adhesives using electrospun polymer micro- and nano-fibers. If successful, this project will spur commercialization activities for the next-generation adhesives emulating naturally occurring phenomena with synthetic flexible equivalents.
The team will prototype products and investigate a business model for subsequent investment. The proposed activities in team building, research and wealth creation will forge links among manufacturing science, materials physics and entomological disciplines and the team will complement the PI's efforts in materials development. The team has identified over a dozen potential partners that may be interested in the proposed products and this I-Corps effort will support the investigation of the commercial viability with many of these potential partners.
" trained a team of academic researchers together with an industrial mentor on understanding pain points of customers, addressing market needs, launching a start-up that transitions technologies from NSF-funded fundamental research to commercialization. The project launched a new start-up, Akron Ascent Innovations, LLC (AAI), in 2012 and the Company trademarked A'QAT products in 2014. The Company is located in the world's leading center in electrospinning innovations. This enables the I CorpsTM- launched company to capitalize on her nanofiber spinning resources and technology platform to formulate dry reusable adhesives that meet targeted performance as evidenced in our customers' interviews with over 130 industrial customers and end users by phone or through face-to-face meetings. Electrospinning is a commercialized process and this textile adhesive forming process is drastically different from other research programs to replicate prohibitively expensive biomimicking adhesives such as using lithography, chemical etching, time-consuming micro/nano molding processes, and other multi-step manufacturing approaches. The project delivered a patent pending technology and two additional provisional patent applications, an extraordinary sampling program with major industrial leaders in adhesives, sealant, glue, tape and label segments, biomedical, tires and automotive wiring. Additionally, the I CorpsTM- founded Company subsequently hired two full-time postdoc researchers in the City of Akron with federal and state support. The shear adhesion strength reaches a level that is commercially attractive: ~30 Ncm-2 in dynamic shear mode and ~50 Ncm-2 in static dead-weight mode. The project forges links between academic researchers with industrial partners in a commercialization joint venture, with active collaborative efforts ongoing.
