Dr. Lei Tian Distinguished Lecture Series: Matthew Harrington (McGill)

A bio-inspired playbook for sustainably fabricating strong materials using transient interactions and fluid phases In nature, certain organisms fabricate materials with properties that outperform those made by humans (e.g., plastics, composites, and adhesive). For example, spider silk is three times tougher than Kevlar, while mussels adhere to wet surfaces with ease—something that our best glues fail to do. Moreover, these materials are produced under biologically and environmentally friendly conditions using biorenewable building blocks. Paradoxically, the key to the impressive mechanical pro