Adaptable bio-based adhesives with robustness, durability, and multifunction enabled by low-molecular-weight polyphenol

Developing adaptable adhesives that can resist the rigors of environments is essential to many applications but remains challenging. Herein, inspired by polyphenol-enabled adaptable mussel adhesives, an efficient strategy is proposed for fabricating self-adaptable bio-based adhesives (BIOAs). This approach rationally leverages low-molecule-weight tea polyphenols (TPs) to mediate camellia meal (CM, a low-cost biological macromolecules) systems. Benefiting from TPs' superior molecular compliance, the incorporation enables a highly adaptable CM network that combines structural reliability and dynamicity, providing the resultant adhesive with high-strength yet multi-purposed adhesion (up to 1.12 MPa on wood substrates even under hydrothermal conditions at 100 °C), long-term stability (retaining 0.88 MPa on wood substrates after immersing in water for 30 days), tolerance to harsh environments (i. e., temperature, pH, salt and organic solvent), and resistance to mildew and flame. This TP-mediated design could be extended to more BIOA systems with much-enhanced adhesion properties, offering a promising alternative to construct adaptable adhesives with excellent performances for the better response to complex application scenarios.