ORNL Makes Reusable Mussel-Inspired Glue From Plastic Waste
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- Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers built a reversible adhesive from waste polymers like PET bottles, fabric fibers, and packaging films — using no solvents or catalysts — that bonds wood, glass, metal, paper, and polymers in both wet and dry conditions, including seawater and temperatures as low as -100°C.
- Anisur Rahman and Mary Danielson led the study, published in Science Advances, showing the mussel-inspired glue uses amine-based reversible crosslinkers that soften with heat and re-form on cooling, allowing it to be debonded and rebonded more than 10 times with no performance loss while maintaining shear strength above the 7–10 MPa range typical of commercial structural adhesives.
- ORNL's glue can also be chemically recovered by flooding it with excess amine molecules, breaking the adhesive back into monomer subunits — 'we can recover all chemicals used in this adhesive,' Rahman said — and the lifecycle analysis showed it is more energy-efficient to produce than commercial alternatives.
- The technology targets a global adhesives and sealants market valued at approximately $87 billion and projected to reach nearly $119 billion by 2032, and the team has applied for a patent on the process.
- ORNL researchers also demonstrated the adhesive joining dissimilar substrates like composites to aluminum or steel — a key challenge in automotive and aerospace manufacturing — and are now tuning the crosslinking chemistry to enable weaker, temporary bonds for applications like removable labels, adhesive bandages, and drug-delivery patches.
Why it matters: A single adhesive that bonds multiple materials in extreme environments and can be fully recovered — chemically or by heating — challenges the one-use model of the $87 billion global adhesives market, with direct savings in manufacturing rework, repair, and waste. The ORNL team has applied for a patent, positioning the lab to license the chemistry for both structural and pressure-sensitive applications.
