Bioinspired dopamine-conjugated polyaspartamide as a novel and versatile adhesive material

Biomimetic dopamine-conjugated polyaspartamides as novel adhesive materials were synthesized and characterized. These modified polyaspartamides contain three different groups combined with dopamine (DOPA), i.e., γ-amino butyric acid (GABA), ethanolamine (EA) and octylamine (OA), which are referred to as PolyAspAm (DOPA/GABA), PolyAspAm(DOPA/EA) and PolyAspAm(DOPA/OA), respectively. These three water-swollen polymer glues show good adhesion (0.1~0.4 MPa) with various daily-life materials (aluminum foil, glass and paper) as well as some plastic substrates (PET and PMMA). Compared to the polymers with more hydrophilic groups (GABA and EA), the polymer glue with the hydrophobic alkyl group (OA) exhibited higher adhesive strength values on most substrates. In addition, when applied to biological porcine skin, these glues demonstrated adhesion of values of 15~20 kPa with EA- and OA-conjugated polymers. These results suggest the great potential of dopamine-modified polyaspartamides as versatile and efficient polymeric glues for industrial and biomedical applications.