On June 17, invited by Professor Haifeng Yu of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering (MSE), College of Engineering, Associate Professor Zhenhai Xia of the University of North Texas visited MSE and gave a lecture entitled “Biomimetic Design of Carbon Nanomaterials for Dry Adhesives”. Dozens of teachers and students from MSE, Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology Beijing, and Institute of Chemistry of Chinese Academy of Sciences attended the lecture.

In the talk, Xia presented his team’s recent efforts on the development of artificial dry adhesives by studying gecko foot’s biological system. Using carbon nanotube arrays, they have created gecko-foot-mimetic dry adhesives that show macroscopic adhesive forces almost ten times of that of a gecko foot.

Xia introduced that the mimics can be alternatively strong binding-on and easy lifting-off over various substrates for simulating the walking of a living gecko. However, the self-cleaning function has not been fully achieved and requires further study, as he pointed out. The attendees showed great interest in the talk, and raised many related questions.

Following the talk, Xia met with many faculty members of MSE and exchanged thoughts on fields of common interests. Both parties expressed willingness of future cooperation.

In addition, Xia shared with MSE graduate students about his research experience of nearly 30 years and offered many suggestions about English writing and paper publishing.

About Professor Zhenhai Xia
Zhenhai Xia is now an Associate Professor of materials science and engineering of the University of North Texas. His current research interests are focused on design, synthesis, theory study and device application of biomimetic materials. He has published near 100 publications, many of which are very influential, including two in Science. His research has been supported by NSF, NASA, U.S. Air Force, etc.