Static on steroids lets meat and fruit stick to metal at flick of switch

Electrical conductors can be strongly and reversibly adhered to soft matter such as gels or plant and animal tissue when a small electric field is applied. The surprising finding could find use in biomedical, materials or robotic applications. ‘I feel like I have found a secret in nature,’ says Srinivasa Raghavan , who led the research.

Typically, adhesion between soft gel-like substances and hard solids is possible only with materials that have been modified in some way, such as with azides and alkynes – to be linked through cycloaddition reactions – or with catechol groups to mimic how mussels stick to rocky surfaces . Previous work has shown that cationic and anionic gels can adhere through the application of a small external electric field and the Raghavan group has proved that such electroadhesion works between a gel and naturally anionic animal tissue.