New metallic glue looks to replace soldering

MesoGlue is a form of metallic adhesive created for the purpose of allowing engineers / designers to forego the hot / arduous task of soldering components to a circuit board.

The glue can be stored at and used in room temperature settings. This feature, coupled with the complete elimination of soldering savvy, should open to doors for more hobbyists to take on electronics projects, especially in the field of PCBs.

Now, what’s interesting about MesoGlue is that it looks and acts like silver solder. To that end, it’s incredibly strong and can, in fact, even be used for such additional tasks as reattaching chips to heatsinks. This is particularly convenient because it eliminates the need for specialty adhesives like thermal paste. 

MesoGlue was created by Professors Hanchen Huang and Paul Elliott of Northeastern University, as well as Professor Stephen Stagon of the University of North Florida. The team says the paste is still in the early stages of roll-out, but that it will hit the market en masse pretty soon. 

“Both ‘metal’ and ‘glue’ are familiar terms to most people, but their combination is new and made possible by unique properties of metallic nanorods — infinitesimally small rods with metal cores that we have coated with the element indium on one side and galium on the other. These coated rods are arranged along a substrate like angled teeth on a comb: There is a bottom ‘comb’ and a top ‘comb.'” said Huang. “We then interlace the ‘teeth.’ When indium and gallium touch each other, they form a liquid. The metal core of the rods acts to turn that liquid into a solid. The resulting glue provides the strength and thermal/electrical conductance of a metal bond. We recently received a new provisional patent for this development through North-Eastern University.”

“The metallic glue has multiple applications, many of them in the electronics industry. As a heat conductor, it may replace the thermal grease currently being used, and as an electrical conductor, it may replace today’s solders. Particular products include solar cells, pipe fittings, and components for computers and mobile devices,” he said.

To learn more, check out the clip on MesoGlue below:

Finally, to read more, download the team’s paper, entitled “Metallic Glue for Ambient Environments Making Strides”, which was published in the January issue of Advanced Materials & Processes.

Via Northeastern University