nanoGriptech
Nature’s design evolved over a billion years to create the amazingly sticky feet of a gecko. Our multi-patented, multi-year development of Setex™ mimics that design with millions of fibers to create a revolutionary dry adhesive and grip platform technology.
WebsitenanoGriptech, a spin out of Carnegie Mellon University, is the first commercial manufacturer of dry adhesive technology providing micro-fibrillar polymer dry adhesives and surfaces for a wide range of product applications. Our gecko- inspired Setex™ products address challenges current adhesives, gripping material and fasteners cannot. nanoGriptech’s technology enables visionary product designers to implement creative, first-to-market designs and solve tough, costly manufacturing problems.
Our expertise has been developed over the years. Encouraged by the results of nearly a decade of academic research in understanding and synthesizing biologically-inspired adhesives, Dr. Metin Sitti, a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, founded and spun out nanoGriptech from the university in 2009. Since then, nanoGriptech’s team of subject matter experts have secured multiple research awards from the likes of the National Science Foundation, U.S. Defense Department, NASA, and the PA NanoMaterials Commercialization Center, among others.
nanoGriptech patterns a surface (which can be a polymer film, fabric or other moldable material) to create an array of mushroom-shaped fibrillary structures mushroom shaped tips, each microns across. Using dry intermolecular forces rather than wet chemical adhesion, this surface has adhesion strength tunable from near-zero up to several hundred kPa and can survive up to 5,000 uses because the adhesion is physical, not chemical.