What is the gecko tape?

GECKO TAPE is an experimental material developed in 2003 by an international team of scientists from Great Britain and Russia. It is the surface of the tape covered with nanoscopic hairs designed to maximize the surface area. Gecko tape has not yet been improved, but when it is, people could allow people to walk on walls and ceilings like a gecko.

GECON is an impressive creature. It can support its entire weight on the horizontal wall with only one finger that is slight compared to the body size. It can move faster than a meter per second along a molecular smooth surface such as polished glass. The secret is in Van der Waals strength, the intermolecular power that occurs when molecules behave like small magnets that attract each other. To use it well, this requires a lot of surface surfaces that have geckos. Each hair is about 200 to 500 nanometers wide. In the last decade it has been possible for scientists to think of artificial material like a gecko with hair so smallSTI. The adhesive force of a centimeter of gek legs is about 10 Newtons, similar to the gecko tape.

GECKO hair are made of keratin, but scientists have used fibrous polyimide to create a gek tape because it is easier to work on this scale. Originally used as a substrate for hairs in GECKO tapes, but it was found that flexible substrates are able to better compensate uneven surfaces and many times increase uneven surfaces.

The problem with the artificial geek tape is that, unlike the real geckos, it happens after several uses. This is because polyimide is not hydrophobic as keratin and atomic films on the surface cause its hair hair to soak and clump together. Keratin hairs on gek legs allow the animal to run through damp soil and then immediately on a flat surface, such as glass, a lot to the astonishment of material scientists. GECKO projectTAPE is part of a larger field called biomimetics in which scientists and engineers use animals as inspiration for new materials and equipment.