Stereomicrostructure-regulated biodegradable adhesives

Zhen Zhang^#¹, Ethan C Quinn^#¹, Jacob K Kenny^{2

3}, Alexandra Grigoropoulos⁴, Jason S DesVeaux^{2

3}, Tiffany Chen^{5

6

7}, Li Zhou¹, Ting Xu^{4

5

6

7}, Gregg T Beckham^{2

3}, Eugene Y-X Chen¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
² Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA.
³ BOTTLE Consortium, Golden, CO, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁶ Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁷ Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39818898
DOI: 10.1126/science.adr7175

Stereomicrostructure-regulated biodegradable adhesives

Zhen Zhang et al. Science. 2025.

. 2025 Jan 17;387(6731):297-303.

doi: 10.1126/science.adr7175. Epub 2025 Jan 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
² Renewable Resources and Enabling Sciences Center, National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO, USA.
³ BOTTLE Consortium, Golden, CO, USA.
⁴ Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁶ Materials Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
⁷ Kavli Energy NanoScience Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39818898
DOI: 10.1126/science.adr7175

Abstract

Commercial adhesives are petroleum-based thermoset networks or nonbiodegradable thermoplastic hot melts, making them ideal targets for replacement by biodegradable alternatives. Poly(3-hydroxybutyrate) (P3HB) is a biorenewable and biodegradable alternative to conventional plastics, but microbial P3HB, which has a stereoperfect stereomicrostructure, exhibits no adhesion. In this study, by elucidating the fundamental relationship between chemocatalytically engineered P3HB stereomicrostructures and adhesion properties, we found that biodegradable syndio-rich P3HB exhibits high adhesion strength and outperforms common commercial adhesives, whereas syndiotactic, isotactic, or iso-rich P3HB shows no measurable adhesion. The syndio-rich stereomicrostructure brings about desired thermomechanical and viscoelastic properties of P3HB that enable strong adhesion to a range of substrates tested, including aluminum, steel, glass, and wood, and its performance is insensitive to molar mass and reprocessing or reuse.

PubMed Disclaimer

Save citation to file

Email citation

Add to Collections

Add to My Bibliography

Your saved search

Create a file for external citation management software

Your RSS Feed

Stereomicrostructure-regulated biodegradable adhesives

Affiliations

Stereomicrostructure-regulated biodegradable adhesives

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract