Chemists Crack Secrets of Mussels' Super Glue

Roland Piquepaille writes "Researchers from Purdue University working under an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) have discovered that common blue mussels are using iron found in seawater to create their own super glue. "In addition to using the knowledge to develop safer alternatives for surgical and household glues, the researchers are looking at how to combat the glue to prevent damage to shipping vessels and the accidental transport of invasive species, such as the zebra mussel that has ravaged the midwestern United States." This overview contains more details and references about this discovery. You'll also find an image of mussel glue at a magnification of 25,000X and one of a mussel adhering to a sheet of Teflon."

Comments

More links for the chemistry inclined

[chrestomanci]

This area of research is similar to what I did as a chemistry post graduate.

After a bit of googling, I found the researcher's home page:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/Faculty/wilker.h tm

I also found the page for his research group. Linked from it, was a more detailed description of the chemistry involved:
http://www.chem.purdue.edu/wilker/adhes ives.htm

Unfortunately, while I could find a number of links to actual publications in peer-reviewed chemistry journals, all where subscription sites.

old news

[Anonymous Coward]

This was discovered by Sander Haemes 3 years ago.

Zebra mussel info page

[slashd'oh]

More information about the zebra mussel can be found here:

The Zebra Mussel Page

The slide show link is informative. To quote: "Zebra mussels are a pest organism because they not only attach to one another, but also to man-made objects, including water intakes and other plumbing of water, power, and other companies that use fresh water. [snip] Zebra mussels also attach to other organisms, such as these native (North American) mussels from Lake Erie. Heavy loads of zebra mussels have killed essentially all native Unionid mussels in western Lake Erie, an early site of the zebra mussel invasion. Zebra mussels first appeared in Lake St. Clair (yellow star, north of Lake Erie), possibly from ship's ballast water from the Black Sea region. They rapidly spread downstream with the current, and upstream and to other watersheds on boats, with bait, and by other man-mediated mechanisms."

The National Atlas website has a nice Shockwave animation illustrating the invasion between 1988 and 1999:

Animated Map Showing Zebra Mussel Distribution

That depends

[The Tyro]

On the oxidation state of the iron molecules. The glue dissolver might have to reduce the iron in order to break the bond. Iron is commonly found in the Fe2+ and Fe3+ oxidation states. If the iron molecules are in the Fe2+ state, then you would be correct.

There's a couple of easy mnemonics to remember the general RedOx rules:

OLEGON (Oxidation is Loss of Electrons and Gain in Oxidation Number)
or
LEO says GER (Loss of Electrons is Oxidation, Gain of Electrons is Reduction).

There's probably others, but basic chemistry was a looong time ago for me...