Interfacial Adhesion of Fully Transient, Mussel?Inspired Hydrogels with Different Network Crosslink Modalities

In fully transient, mussel-inspired hydrogels, metal-coordinate complexes form supramolecular crosslinks, which offer tunable viscoelastic properties and mechanical reversibility. The metal-coordination complexation that comprises the crosslinks can take on tris-, bis-, mono-, free-state modalities (3, 2, 1, or 0 ligands per ion, respectively). Although prior work has established relationships between network crosslinking properties, effect of crosslink ligand gel-surface adhesion is not well understood for transient hydrogels. Using glass nickel-coated spherical probes, adhesive strength hydrogels based histidine-Ni2+ nitrodopamine-Fe3+ ion investigated. Since have a strong impact bulk network, it first determined how relates to regardless distribution type. It ultimately found peak stress increases with decreasing percentage in tris-crosslinks.