geckos and van der Waals forces

[robert zellmer]

There's a link on my homepage about an article (from The Columbus
Dispatch) about geckos and why their feet are "sticky" and they can
climb on walls.  It has to do with van der Waals attractive forces.
These are London Forces and Dipole-Dipole AF.  In this case, largely
(if not entirely) LF.  Amazing, something you've learned about this
semester is actually applicable in your everyday life.  Well, at least
if you are a gecko or want to climb on walls like one. Someday that
may just be possible.  They are now developing adhesives that
mimic the little hairs on the geckos feet that allow it to cling
to walls. These adhesives and tapes will be reusable.

You will find the link toward the bottom of my homepage and I've
included it here,

http://www.chemistry.ohio-state.edu/~rzellmer/gecko.pdf


A group at the University of Akron (among other places) has developed
a tape that works w/o any glue by mimicking how a geckos foot works.
The home page is

http://blogs.uakron.edu/dhinojwala/biomimetics/


Here's a link to a product called Geckskin developed at UMass that uses 
the same van der Waal force
principals. A 3x5 note-card sized piece of the material can hold a 700 
lb. block of metal to glass.
The link is below.

https://geckskin.umass.edu/

Dr. Zellmer
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