Zwitterionic Superstrong and Reversible Adhesive with High Solvent Resistance and Antibacterial Property

Strong adhesives have tremendous application potential across various fields. However, those relying on chemical bonding tend to become brittle after curing and are difficult to remove or recycle upon adhesion failure. Currently, adhesives based on dynamic interactions often suffer from poor adhesion reversibility and solvent resistance. Herein, a superstrong adhesive was fabricated via block copolymerization of acrylic acid (AA), methyl methacrylate, styrene, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), and quaternary ammonium salt (QAS). Owing to strong interactions of rigid ionic segments and enhanced toughness by soft PDMS segments, the copolymer achieves adhesion strengths exceeding 10.0 MPa on various substrates, with a maximum of ∼20.9 MPa on glass, exceeding classic strong adhesives such as epoxy and ethyl α-cyanoacrylate. Especially, the zwitterionic adhesives present high adhesion reversibility, with 57-94% adhesion recovery on polar and nonpolar substrates via solvent-triggered dynamic bond reorganization. Moreover, the integration of diverse molecular interactions, including electrostatic interactions, hydrogen bonding, and hydrophobic interactions, endows the adhesive with high resistance to organic and aqueous media. The copolymer exhibits exceptional antibacterial activity against Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria, predominantly from the QAS and AA components. Such a strong, reversible, robust, versatile, and antibacterial adhesive holds great promise for achieving durable adhesion under practical application conditions.