This Video is About Electroadhesion.

[@ACSReactions]

In case you don't want to scroll all the way down to our sources in the video description, here's the electroadhesion paper: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.3c01593 And based off the not-yet-published stuff they told us about while we were shooting, we may have to do a follow up video at some point down the road.

[@xtieburn]

Hmm, isnt the electroadhesion paper that team did 10.1021/acscentsci.3c01593 ?

[@ACSReactions]

Whoops, it sure is, thank you for noticing! Edited.

[@babyoda1973]

Dude you got to meet them that is so cool those guys are heros and you're a legend 😊

[@ioanacsinte7971]

I really love this video and i have one idea how work glues in general, probably is wrong but I say anyway , This is from many physics disciplines : 1. From thermodynamics hot body gives electrons to cold body ,( the same principle of calorimeter ) if you melted bismuth and add another piece of cold bismuth or another metal you can see liquid metal are sticking by cold metal 2. From chemistry regular super glue are sticking by another surface but in the same time is heated or overheated depends by type of surface because give electrons to the second body 3. And electro chemistry “ electroadhesion” is the same principle of first and second samples but add electrons artificial by humans. Is just electrons transfer from one material to another but because atoms are not changed between this 2 body’s are sticking just in electrons. Actually that blue colour from gel is made by copper ions ( copper electrons) sticking in gel

[@seraphoftheend8132]

@@ioanacsinte7971 thank you fpr the last one i wondered if it was because the material broke and just the blue light reflected or sth. idk i have a massive lack in the vocabulary needed here xD

[@crawkn]

Clearly chemists should be required to hire 3-year-olds to continuously ask them "but why?", until they realize that the answer is "nobody knows (yet)."

[@a.randomjack6661]

Why could be anything. The complicated questions are "how",

[@crawkn]

@@a.randomjack6661 why and how serve the same function in this context. You can't tell why without telling how. But sure, most 3-year-olds can also employ "how."

[@a.randomjack6661]

Ever listened to Lawrence Krauss talking about this? Maybe you should...

[@crawkn]

@@a.randomjack6661 You've been rather vague with that suggestion, I assume Lawrence has said a great many things about hows and whys, but here is one of them: "I think the biggest philosophical questions - why is there something rather than nothing - have now become scientific questions, and that the hows and whys are actually the same thing. In science, 'why' questions can always be recast as 'how' questions. And that's the kind of question I can try and answer." Big Think interview, 2011. I would generalize that to mean that he is referring to avoiding the kind of vague existential "whys," not the specific ones, like why does this chemical stick to that one.

[@unvergebeneid]

Isn't that what being a scientist is? Minus the three-year-olds and plus finding some actual explanations?

[@FennecTECH]

The jello became blue because copper ions were driven into the jello by running current through it from a copper plate

[@Alfred-Neuman]

prove it...

[@ganjalfcreamcorn8438]

Makes sense for sure

[@SeaTurtle1122]

If that were the case, I think we would expect to see a gradient where the blue color is strongest closest to the plate and weakest closest to the opposite plate. The sample he showed appeared to be a relatively uniform blue tint, and the time frame seems very short for ion transport like that, so I’m skeptical

[@animehair05silently88]

I'd be interested in seeing that hypothesis tested; probably you could test clear gels with copper electrodes until you find one that turns blue like in the video, then see if it does the same with graphite electrodes? or alternately teat all your gels with both copper electrodes and graphite instead of only testing graphite on the ones that turn blue with copper

[@SodiumInteresting]

Solvated electron. Does the gel contain amine functional groups 🤔 😅

[@rylanpeepee]

If i ever need to gule a piece of metal to jello, I'll come back to this video.

[@quintessenceSL]

Someone will eventually figure out how to isolate the direction charge and end up gluing two metals together with jello. And that has huge implications in labor savings (just assemble and apply current).

[@AySz88]

It wasn't on the screen very long, but the paper talks about gluing *tissues* to metals. As in, body parts.

[@Kenionatus]

A small step for humanity, a huge leap for flesh robots. ​@@AySz88

[@bobert6259]

You can reversibly glue “almost any hydrogel to almost any metal”, where hydrogel includes fruits, veggies, meat, etc. so basically you can stick almost anything biological (any hydrogel but close enough!) to any hard surface. That’s pretty remarkable imo.

[@Risky_Boots999]

wish i saw this last week

[@gmozzi5827]

This is an astounding example of science communication. Clear, concise, stimulating; seeing you do the experiments, getting sidetracked, asking questions and not immediately having answers makes the journey enjoyable and instructive (THIS is how science works!). thank you for making it

[@Dcjoe94]

Is it heating. The jello stuff or whatever it is food related? Like cooking it with microscopic plasma?

[@r-i-v-v]

​@@Dcjoe94ionic bonding ?

[@gl15col]

I always get a giggle out of science deniers who triumphantly say "See, they didn't know every possible thing about this subject, and now new facts have changed how they explain it!" Hah, jokes on them. Scientists love it when new facts come up and change the explanation for something. New knowledge is the gold medal, the thing they're working for. A true scientist does not have any problem with changing a hypothesis to integrate new discoveries, as long as it takes them closer to the final solution.

[@AstridDaFox]

Small correction. Water is extremely sticky. Where you can wipe up most oils without having a large amount of residue left behind, water will leave a damp spot. This ability to stick to things is one of the reasons that water is so good for life because it will dissolve anything that is slightly polar which includes the nutrients inside cells. It just doesn't feel sticky because it's not very viscous. Good video though.

[@WolfgangBrehm]

Sugar is very sticky too, by the same mechanism water is.

[@autarchex]

Years ago I worked at a tech company that made a product built from glass and silicon wafers bonded together. I was curious and asked about the adhesive used and the reply was "electric charge." "Huh?" You lay a Si wafer down flat on a hotplate/electrode, then cover it with a glass wafer, then lay the other electrode on top and heat up the whole sandwich. Glass becomes more conductive as it heats up. Run a current through the stack and the large, flat faces of the wafers stick together. Maintain the current after turning off the heat source; as it cools down the glass resumes being an insulator and the current drops to practically zero. Your two wafers are now permanently bonded together - as long as they are not exposed to very high temperatures - by separated electric charges frozen in place on either side of the interface. A better bond than any glue or adhesive and no gaps. I was told this was "electroadhesion" and was well known in certain technical niche contexts but little known otherwise. Might as well be witchcraft the first time you see it.

[@wolvenar]

I accidentally found this property/ reaction between metals and various soft foods when I was a kid in the 1980s. I was experimenting with what I could use to make batteries. Well more so seeing what would work as an electrolyte, and if any of them would allow reforming of metals so they could recharge. I mentioned I was just a kid right?) I didn't realize there was anything particularly special about it and shrugged it off as something mildly interesting. Makes you wonder how many other discoveries have happened but not realized.

[@zinckensteel]

LOADS, but most never find a place in the realm of practical tech that leads to it being widely known. Most discoveries start with "huh, that's weird.." ..but most people don't have an aggrandizing university name behind them that wants nothing more than to HYPE THAT SHIT.

[@michaelandersen7535]

My favorite instance of this is the "discovery" that meal worms can eat and digest polystyrene, which got people really excited about the recycling possibilities. Farmers, who feed meal worms to chickens, replied with "yeah, everyone knows they eat polystyrene. That's why you can't keep them in polystyrene cups"

[@PixlRainbow]

​@@michaelandersen7535tbf, it's a bit more complicated than that. It's one thing to know that mealworms eat polystyrene, it's another thing to know that they actually digest it properly rather than just passing it through or accumulating it.

[@machematix]

​​@@PixlRainbow this is amazing news! I grow mealworms for my lizards. Unfortunately I don't have dinosaurs so I can't break down much... But I wonder if the bacteria would get passed on to other species they live with... I read it works with shrimp, but what about the lizard itself? Probably not. Guess I just need more lizards to eat the hordes of mealworms. Or go feed the birds.

[@1495978707]

Yes, it was *crazy* to me as a physicist entering materials science to realize that there's nothing all that special going on with adhesives, just a whole lot of surface contact. Most things that touch only actually make atomic contact on a small fraction of the surfaces. Pretty much anything that can go from liquid to solid can be a glue, even metal can! Which is what solder is. But! Wetting is important, just because you have a liquid on a solid doesn't mean it fills in all the nooks and crannies and bonds to it. Surface energy does matter too, which is why teflon is very hard to stick to

[@andrewgregoryhansen1209]

Teflon does make a great oxidizer in thermitic reactions. Though it goes off with a bang, and is prone to static, so…

[@jemmerl]

Which blows my mind that we have developed adhesives that work with PTFE! When I first came across it at work I was shocked it (PTFE adhesive tape) even existed

[@surronzak8154]

Soldering isn't gluing, I mean real soldering, not brass soldering who is in fact just gluing

[@andrewtinker7537]

This seems to be a bit of rediscovery. Edison invented an audio amplifier based on electroadhesion he called the 'electro-motograph', after noting that passing an electric current between a wet absorbent substance and a metal plate caused the wet substance to stick. It used adhesion between a rotating metal disk and a chalk electrode or a rotating chalk disk and a metal electrode. Passing an intermittent electric current, for example from a carbon microphone, between the chalk and metal would cause the chalk to adhere and then slip, and the resulting pull/release action on the electrode was transmitted to a speaker diaphragm by a string.

[@YunxiaoChu]

Cool

[@chlochlo_the_T_BAG]

that’s fine. he at the same time googled it at first. remember this started from a very single google search

[@mpanganiban]

I know this comment was two months ago, but I'd like to chime in. Edison probably observed just transient electrostatic force -- that is, it only works when voltage is passed. But in Xu, et al. (ACS Central Sci 2024), their electric currents creates covalent bonds between the electrode and the soft material. Sometimes they found it to be reversible by applying the voltage at opposite polarity, although it was case-to-case, depending on the pairing between electrode and soft material surface chemistries.

[@blindbutnotbroken1755]

I’m picturing practical applications for this technology and I am envisioning airlock seals on spacecraft that rely on electro adhesion with a gel interface layer creating a perfect seal reversible at a moments notice. This is a truly remarkable discovery. It has so many practical applications. It’s unbelievable. wow I love these videos. Always something new to learn, thank you for sharing this

[@hathzorz]

Very surprising when the scientist in the paper you were talking about ended up being my professor from undergrad!

[@wellscampbell9858]

Gonna guess the blue was copper salts formed by electrolysis.

[@vapenation7061]

correct it’s due to Cu2+ ions in the gel

[@yegfreethinker]

Was thinking the same

[@FreeXenon]

I am not a chemistry person, but I greatly appreciate your explanations. Water is a glue?!?! Mind blown!

[@jtjames79]

I can't believe I never thought of using ice to pull parts. The cold would reduce the diameter, and give you grip.

[@crawkn]

To generalize, removing electrons from a material, i.e. ionizing it, makes it more chemically active, so chemical bonds will be part of the adhesive effect. It is useful to know the specifics of those bonds, but not essential to a general understanding of the phenomenon. Some glues work almost exclusively by mechanical bonding, others mostly chemical, but most have some combination of the two, with Van Der Waals forces contributing negligibly. However deliberately weak adhesives with reversible bonds may rely primarily on Van Der Waals forces.

[@thekaxmax]

That last line: gecko tape

[@dj_laundry_list]

I'm trying to adhere to your lecture material but this lesson didn't really stick. I just can seem to bond with you on this. At least it wasn't tacky.

[@ACSReactions]

the writing's really on the van der Waals here haha I'm so sorry

[@BarteG44]

Nerd to nerd communication

[@dj_laundry_list]

@@ACSReactions I find it ionic that you're forcing the issue. This might be an anode-dyne thing to say, but this is very cathodeartic

[@tedarcher9120]

Need more voltage applied to your parts

[@ivoryas1696]

@@BarteG44 All according to Kekaku, one could say! 🤓

[@achatinaslak742]

I can imagine, that the bond between you and your sweet dog is very strong. Why? ... Pure LOVE.!

[@1.4142]

Applications... prank your siblings by sticking their jello to their spoon?

[@danielculver2209]

Heck yeah

[@cmaxxen]

And now I'm curious about all the different types of glue and how they work. Hide glue in luthiery, flour paste and paper, contact glue.. so many adhesives out there.

[@kuronosan]

Does it only work with extremely flat surfaces for both material? If it can stand a little roughness I can see an application where a gel or mat of gel hairs is continuously extruded onto a surface and the charge keeps it in place as the gel wears away and is replaced with new gel.

[@SianaGearz]

By all reason, the gel can simply conform to the unevenness of the surface. Because those copper plates he used are guaranteed very unflat at the microscopic scale. Even if they used to be at some point (they didn't), they guaranteed no longer were as soon as he cleaned them with a paper towel.

[@taukid421]

10:28, that 'movie magic' transition to you finishing up a few dotted lines was comedy gold 😂

[@ktktktktktktkt]

I feel like you could stick a smooth metal plate to a banana just with its moisture and surface tension though haha

[@ACSReactions]

Yes! You totally can, and if you've never done it before it's hard to tell if you're getting electroadhesion or just smooshed banana. But there is, in fact, a difference.

[@SilvaDreams]

Pretty much this entire video was either him burning something between the two plates or it just sticking do to surface tension.

[@cavemann_]

@@ACSReactions Judging by the fact that you're a banana expert, I choose trust.

[@themoleznezz]

@@SilvaDreams Burning isn't reversible, and surface tension is not nearly so strong.

[@unvergebeneid]

Now I want electroadhesive hairspray.

[@CCSMrChen]

This video is cutting edge science. I felt my brain growing over 14 minutes. Thank you!

[@bengraham3707]

These videos are much more fun than they have any right to be.

[@jasonneugebauer5310]

Hair spray was originally made from boiled flax seeds and water(probably also some alcohol or something to make it dry fast)... NOT Elmer's Glue. You can try the flax seeds recipe it works. My wife's sister in Honduras uses it all the time.

[@DH-bf9xb]

You say COVID, but one notices the espresso martini look'n drink on the table.

[@ChromicQuanta]

Water is hot glue for penguins!

[@danielculver2209]

aw :)

[@whatitmeans]

for now on I will ask for a glass of "penguins' super glue"!!!

[@KeritechElectronics]

Reversible electro-adhesion is interesting; I wonder if the other end adhered after you reversed the polarity. A very fun and informative video, I loved the sense of humor and admitting where you messed up.

[@belg4mit]

I wonder if the blue gel is from free electrons, a la lithium in ammonia.

[@zinckensteel]

That was my first thought as well, but after more consideration it is far more likely to be copper ions driven into the gel via iontophoresis

[@YunxiaoChu]

Free electrons would probably reduce the carboxylate ions in gelatin, it’s probably a copper hydroxide colloid

[@GrinninPig]

Words words words uhh words 🧪🔬🥼

[@lajoswinkler]

No. There can be no free electrons in aqueous solutions. This is hydratized Cu2+. And this is not electroadhesion at all.

[@nyuh]

aw yeah i love videos like this !!! because i often forget that science is happening all the time and there are SO MANY things we dont know yet. and its so exciting to glimpse into the unknown like this. ESPECIALLY hearing directly from the researchers themselves. i extremely appreciate the research put into this vid despite the notational errors XD

[@RussellBeattie]

I always thought glues work at a level far above the atomic scale. Most surfaces have nooks and crannies, liquids flow into those crannies and then harden (sticking to themselves as explained in the video), creating a bunch of micro hooks and jams (like a rock climber cams) that keep the two surfaces connected. How smooth is a copper or graphite plate? Could the electrodes simply be heating the gels sufficiently to cause it to go from semi-solid slightly liquid and then stick through a similar process? Can you do the electroadhesion in a freezer?

[@tenJajcus]

Heating would work the same on both electrodes and would not depend on current flow direction. As it works on single side and is reversible with changed polarity, it cannot be heat alone.

[@davidspoon9321]

Thank you for this video. I really appreciate how you took time to get the concept firmly in the viewers mind before continuing with your presentation.

[@carpemkarzi]

Gotta love the new science being discovered and explored. This could dead end to a ‘neat’ thing or open up whole new technologies. Damn fine work from the team and as always damn fine work from George.

[@ACSReactions]

Thank you!

[@ChristopherCurtis]

Not on headphones today but the audio levels across jump cuts seems much more consistent. Good job and thanks if that was intentional. Interesting content as always. I will be sure to tell everyone I know that water is a glue.

[@relientker]

i need a full video on how different glues and adhesives stick to OTHER things, thats always been such a fascinating concept to me. and how different types have different long term stickability or restickability. so fascinating lol.

[@wilhelmschmidt7240]

2:33 When I was a teenager we used glue to stand up our Mohawks. You can get a good 3 foot spike off your head with a bit of Elmer's.

[@willemvandebeek]

huh, water is glue, that is an epiphany...

[@filonin2]

Any liquid is when cooled below it's freezing point. Steel is a glue if you spread it as a liquid over rocks and let it cool.

[@willemvandebeek]

@@filonin2 not sure about the 'any liquid'-part, for example I can see liquid butter solidified being less sticky than water-ice...

[@apppples]

​@@filonin2 i think any liquid that has a wetting property, but not any liquid?

[@rileyhtn6774]

Daaaaaanng I'm so glad KZbin provides me with my interest

[@noone-ez6on]

I remember wondering about adhesion mechanisms some years ago and spending a while on the net trying to get to the bottom of it. I think the explanation that worked most for me, atleast partially, was a simple physical anchor being created as the fluid filled out porous materials and hardened. Which i always though explained it pretty well, if not fully. Thanks for those two papers, i think it's about time to update my knowledge on this topic!

[@Nuovoswiss]

The mechanism seems simple. It's long been known that organic molecules (such as the proteins in gelatin or the saccharides in a banana) undergo electrochemical reactions. Since this adhesion only occurs at the anode, we can infer some of the metal is being oxidized, as well as some of the nearby organic molecules. The oxidation of metal, along with the aqueous environment of both can lead to a nano-porous interface, which would adhere via capillary action. Additionally, it's possible that some component of the protein or saccharide would oxidize to form an organo-copper compound creating molecular bonds.

[@ThePrimaFacie]

This is great, so is the presentation. Looking forward to learning more about this when it solidifies. Thanks for the vid

[@Infinity-fz3sn]

This technique will be a game changer Every entity will be influenced by this superb BRAVO

[@nousername8162]

this video has been the most motivating thing for me to go into chemistry for college in the past year or so lol

[@iamtimsson]

1:10 Is this not heat related? Is it not cooking?

[@TurboWindex]

I thought so too until he reversed the polarity to "undo" the process.

[@AsmodeusMictian]

Bro. Ya got a new subscriber. Not only is the video really entertaining, but you filmed part of it having/recovering from COVID.

[@coorbin]

Cool, we're both really close to UMD. Interesting that you were able to drive over and get in touch with the scientists. This is awesome work and I hope we will learn the mechanisms behind this interesting phenomenon.

[@maxmusterman3371]

Its so cool that you spoke with the researchers

[@daniellapain1576]

This looks incredibly similar to how acid batteries work over a long period but in this case it’s the buildup of material that causes a bond instead of destroying a battery. The reactive material in the solid electrolyte gets pushed to the other surface filling up the tiny gaps and creates a bond. Pole reversal shoves that material to the other side and releases to one side and fills the other. So any battery material should be able to do this in theory. This might be a good way to test for new materials in the future for batteries.

[@oldblinddarby2498]

Hypothesis: In a highly wet matrix with electrolytes, acids, e.t.c, the same mechanism that facilitates electroplating could be happening. Atoms of copper migrate into the material (hence why your gel changed color), the copper can then bond to the copper which is now integrated inferi the gel matrix. When you reverse the charge your taking copper back out, thus undoing the effect. I am likely missing something, but this seems the most logical explanation.

[@johncgibson4720]

13:55 Best cliff hanger in the history of all time.

[@removechan10298]

it's oxygen bonding. the electrical charge allows oxygen to bond into the surface in some crystalline way, that is on a see-saw of energy, so it can tip back over.

[@justicesportsman6020]

Wild! I never read superglue packaging before, but as a chemist I know that LDPE doesn’t adhere to superglue. Been using the fact for a while while building figurines. A ziplock bag saves your models from sticking to your work surface

[@KnightsWithoutATable]

This is going to lead to some seriously sci-fi stuff. It looks simple, but it can allow some really revolutionary things.

[@supermaster2012]

This is just the electric current melting the dielectric and causing it to fill the microscopic voids in the anode, it won't work with dielectrics that have a high melting point.

[@johncgibson4720]

Very good channel and very good episode. Good old organic chemistry is back.

[@raymondprice-db3ls]

Copper ions are bonding to the anions in the electrolyte at the positive electrode. It's reversible like charging and discharging a battery. Hydrogen is evolving in the case of the negative electrode, where no other bonds to the copper forms.

[@LanceThumping]

The thing no one mentioned, including the paper, is if the researchers gave into an intrusive thought and saw if it would adhere their skin to an electrode. If pork sticks there is a chance that we could electrically stick something to our skin and I think that would be insanely cool and have a lot of applications.

[@TheTomCruiseLover]

Oh my gosh this is the same guy as the Ted Ed animated videos !! I'm glad to finally see in person one of my heroes !!

[@chounoki]

It is easy, since there is current flowing through the material, it means electrons flow through the material, which means some electrons are knocked out of the material, otherwise the material should have been completely insulator. With some molecules losing electrons it creates partial ionic bonds. This also explains why only one end of the material close to the anode sticks, because that end loses electrons most. On the other end of the material close to cathode, it is free electrons that rushing into the material instead of the material losing electrons.

[@iamtimsson]

6:10 Press your from the expansion of the water turning into ice. The channels being connected from cubed to cube which is often a lot of the noise heard when cracking. Aside of that the ice is dry and so the friction is high and so when you pop the cubes out that also aids the noise

[@iamtimsson]

thesis hypo hypothesis

[@Volvie]

The cool thing about this is that after the electro adhesion has taken place, you don’t need continuous power to hold it so would be interesting to see what kind of applications this could have.

[@thesquatchdoctor3356]

Thermal gel melting also sticks jello to copper, that is a resistive interface and one side is bubbling so it cannot stick

[@m.n.4370]

Well, normally it would be answered with: "There are a lot of gaps even on a polished surface, even if we can't observe them with our eyes. And their volume and irregular structure is actually enough for glue to soak in, harden and become a hook like structure, which provides enough friction and grab force to appear "stuck for good". Also many glues create a chemical bounding and not just weak hydrogen bounding, but actually C - O or even C - C."

[@filipegaspar3572]

Loved this video. I'm a chemist and always found glues to be a misterious material ahah. But the big question for me is ...if it is a so simple setting and it works on a variety of mecanisms so why electroadhesion was only discovered now? It wasn't right?!

[@pon1]

Interesting! And so simple too, just DC and banana between two copper plates, everyone could do this experiment and test with different substances, could open up a lot of applications, usually when we want to stick and release things with electricity we use electromagnetism, but now we can use this property instead to stick and unstick things :)

[@joehopfield]

Do mussel byssal thread adhesion next! (Their adhesive works underwater and can stick to glass)

[@puffinjuice]

Im pretty sure electro-adhesion is the adhesion when an electric field is used to adhere two surfaces together. Usually very high voltages (kV) are used for electro-adhesion. When the field is removed the electro-adhesion ends. Its is not about permanently gluing surfaces together. Search electro-adhesion and gripper. Youll see lots of grippers which temporarily hold objects.

[@Quadr44t]

This is great! I love material science/supramolecular chemistry. Back in the day I did major in organic/physical chemistry, with a touch of bionanotechnology. All up that alley.

[@kanayamaryam5088]

I thought at first it was just burning the banana or jello to the metal, but reversing the polarity to undo it is amazing. I wonder what other things could stick, and how important conductivity is to the plate material. Could there be a threshold where you use a very resistive material at a high enough voltage to make it electroadhesive? I kinda want to try these things out. Imagine how super conductors with eletroadhesion might impact quantum computing.

[@SmirkInvestigator]

Water is sticky. Just doesn’t have group help from polymerization. But you said basically that with the ice explanation

[@crawkn]

"The why is really less important than . . . what can we do with it" is the perspective of an engineer, not a scientist. The value of knowing the "why" is that it leads scientists to a broadened understanding of what we can do with it, to pass along to the engineers. Of course, those who are both scientists _and_ engineers are the most valuable in this regard.

[@ExylonBotOfficial]

As an engineer, I think all good engineers should also be concerned with the why.

[@crawkn]

@@ExylonBotOfficial Absolutely, the best engineers are also scientists, and vice-versa. Would that all of each were both.

[@yakut9876]

What are the differences between an engineer and a scientist ( engineering and science )?

[@crawkn]

@@yakut9876 generally engineering is science applied to real needs, and science is discovery of new principles which can be applied by engineers. But in practice, most engineers are also scientists, and vice-versa, in varying degrees.

[@Providence83]

​@@yakut9876 I'm going to jump in here to caveat that engineering doesn't actually *need* science at all. Simply, the engineering method is solving problems using heuristics that cause the "best" change according to the application's circumstances, in a poorly understood situation, using available resources. Science merely _assists_ engineering by making "the heuristics" more consistent, "the situation" better understood, and the "available resources" more broad. They're such buddies with each other because... it's just that anything becomes easy if you know _everything._

[@rossfriedman6570]

I'm a middle school science teacher This video is so exceptionally helpful for me

[@Ishrak-ed6lo]

How about using one plate for applying voltage and other two plates for actual binding? A 3-plate configuration?

[@pauljs75]

Another thing is a lot of adhesives also use or are their own solvents until whatever reaction occurs that causes them to set or cure. So there might be some aspect of that property at work as well. But I'm not sure what the explanation with that may be.

[@aerbon]

maybe something to do with electrolysis and some oxidation. and then maybe when the current is reversed, since the gasses are released at the opposite sides, they recombine into water and undo the process?

[@dalitas]

Just to add friendly salt to your wounds, Me is generally reserved for methyl, id use M for an unspecified metal instead.

[@ACSReactions]

Sigh. I think you're right. Though in my defense I did copy "Me" straight from the paper. So nobody caught it in peer review either

[@devoarco]

are you sure that the ice cubes are sticking in the ice tray has to do only with adhesiveness of the ice. I fell like the main factor in play could be the anomaly of the water. you put water in the ice tray and put it in the fridge, the tray shrinks while the water (ultimately) expands becoming ice. It gets physically stuck in the tray. Not sure if that's right but it was my initial thought

[@josephlieberman3027]

Diamonds "C" have an inherent natural affinity for grease, they use this property to obtain diamonds from the bulk pulverized rock, the materials flow along a shaking table which has a sheet of metal coated with grease, the diamonds attach to te grease.

[@alexixeno4223]

This video speaks to my soul. Thank you.

[@stasglazkov8734]

I think the next most reasonable thing to do would be to test the boundries of electroadhesion in special cases. Two that come to my mind would be to test adhesion of the same gels to gold surface to see the impact of metal oxidation that occurs naturaly for most metals, but not for gold. The second test would involve using non-water based gels. Also it would be interesting to see what happens to an established adhesion when the water evaporates from the probe. Does it still stick or does adhesion come undone or maybe it becomes even stronger?

[@jikbrosentertainment]

This means spider-man has actual science to how his wall-crawling works now.

[@pseudonymousgarbage8]

Are you certain that this adhesion with the jello is not due to thermal emissions from the high resistance of jello that causes it to melt somewhat? That would explain the bubbling...

[@ronstiles2681]

Thanks for the video, random information I never knew, or would have spent a minute to find out, but now I feel more informed, I'm better for watching your video, it was not a waste of my time

[@skysea7785]

Adhesion is caused when adhesive hardens then sticks 2 or more surfaces together. Surfaces are not always smooth, at the microscopic level a paper or other surface of a material is not actually smooth and have rough topography. The adhesive will enter the crevices and pores in the surface, and then it becomes hard, thus sticking them. In the video, it looks like the current applied literally "cooks" or burn the surface of the items forming crystals, and thus sticking them. The only molecule bonding with significant strength for glue is covalent bond. So it isn't just chemistry that plays it's part here but also physical too.

[@tiagotiagot]

Can you deglue super-glue using a similar electrical setup?

[@zizimugen4470]

3:03 it looks still stuck to the plate. Did the electron adhesion fail, or did the layer just adjacent to those molecules fail?

[@Kangsteri]

Water structure affected by different surface tension in contact effects on it's molecular structure. It's the Bernoulli's principle. They often call it 4th or 5th state of water, etc.

[@whatitmeans]

what if..... when glue got hard by making polymers, since get dry you get long chains of molecules, but less molecules so more empty space among them.... so... could it be suction what kept things attached??? like if were pockets of emptyness among polymer strands getting attacked by atmospheric pressure?? (you need to see if things attached due superglue get suddenly loose under a vacuum... or a space travel)

[@LokiScarletWasHere]

I think the answer is in the one thing the substances have in common, and the gases released when you electroadhered gel. It works with hydrogels, so the mechanism has to do with the electrolysis of the gel, which is also why one side sticks and the other doesn't. The bubbling on the bottom of the jello was hydrogen gas. Oxygen was also forming on the top but likely was immediately involved in another reaction, whereas in water it would just bubble out of the fluid like the hydrogen is doing. You're anodizing the electrode to the gel, and it's reversed when you convert it to cathodicism. And despite graphite being a great material for a powered anode rod as it's not very reactive, clearly it's bonding. Now you might be wondering, "what's this got to do with anodizing? We're not coating aluminum in a thin coat of sapphire" But that's the fun part. It's called anodizing because the reaction happens to the positive electrode.

[@fluffycritter]

Could you adhere the copper plates to both sides by putting the negative terminal on an electrode in the middle and then wiring two positive terminals in parallel?

[@autonoob]

I wonder how thick the layer was that stayed on after release and if its properties can be varied by manipulating the current/voltage/frequency? Feels like that could be useful somehow. 🤔

[@yehnahthx]

Amazing how this came out and then almost immediately the latest Apple iPhone 16 batteries are affixed using hard-soft electroadhesion. I wonder if surface coating materials like paints are also possible to be electroadhered. Cutting down on solvent usage in manufacturing would be great

[@tomholroyd7519]

Reversing the polarity is always the right thing to do

[@nerobaal6655]

I use my arm as a cathode and hydrogel as an electrolyte.

[@chris2746]

I wonder if this is related to the cold welding phenomenon. There's not usually power involved with the it but perhaps the tiny bit of static is enough?

[@BRUXXUS]

Fascinating! You started to allude to it, but this new form of bonding definitely seems to rely on water. I wonder if a conductive gel that doesn't contain water would work. 🤔

[@SianaGearz]

Hello.

[@weylinstoeppelmann9858]

I wonder if that reversal effect can be used to make superglue unstick from a surface?

[@ten-hx2xi]

so, is it like how batterys get gunked up on their electrodes? and then by reversing the polarity it ungunks them and thus, unbinds them?

[@iamtimsson]

2:45 I imagine that this can be engineered slash fixed easily by putting a different electrode on the other side that did not get adhered and running it the other way, not through the previous circuit. basically use diff electrodes and reverse polarity circuit