Congratulations to Katerina Malollari and Peyman Delparastan on their paper published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces! This work describes an approach to improve the mechanical properties of the mussel adhesive protein inspired nanocoating material polydopamine (pDA). pDA offers a simple and versatile approach to surface modification and has been widely adopted for use in energy harvest and storage, consumer coatings, therapeutic and diagnostic healthcare, and other applications. However, despite its widespread use, pDA coatings are not mechanically robust and exhibit poor resistance to delamination and abrasion. Our approach involves a facile thermal treatment at modest temperatures to enhance the mechanical robustness of pDA coatings.
Other current or former group members that contributed to this work: Caroline Sobek and R. Helen Zha (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Mechanical Enhancement of Bioinspired Polydopamine Nanocoatings
Applied Materials & Interfaces, 2019, 11, 46, 43599-43607
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.9b15740