Salamanquesa

Integrantes:
● Elena Garcia Castro
● Cristian Duvan Sierra Diaz
● Alberto Combatti Sarcos
 About the Gecko
● The tarentola Mauritanica also known as common wall gecko
● Is a species of Gekkota declared mainly, on the sub-species of Least concern
on the conservation Status
● The first record of the description of this unusual phenomenon was given by
Aristotle
Gecko abilities
● Geckos have the ability to climb up a tree even with the head downwards,
defying gravity.
● Hundreds of tiny microscopic hairs in their bulbous toes called Setae
● Setaes split off into hundreds of even tinier bristles called Spatulae

Scientists already knew that the tufts of tiny hairs

get so close to the contours in walls and ceilings
that the van der Waals force kicks in.
Van der Waals Force
● Van der Waals force used by the forementioned
spatulaes
● Dutch physicist Johannes Diderik van der Waals
● First postulated these intermolecular forces in 1873
● The distribution of the charges in some molecules one
side is always positive and the other negative
● Attractive force between them because of their natural
tendency to align with each other
● Similar phenomena with a permanent dipole and an
induced dipole
New studies
● Some phospholipids found in the gecko's
footprints
● Properties of these phospholipids to attract
water in one part
● and repel it in the other
● Gecko can't stick to Polytetrafluoroethylene
polymer (teflon)
● It's likely to attrac other electrons to itself and it
tends to mitigate the London Dispersion Force
● Fluorine is highly electronegative, so it mitigates
the Van der Waals force and geckos cannot stick
in those sort of materials
Biomimicry
● Recently scientists have been designing new adhesives using this idea like a
tape that has millions of plastic fibers and it gets stronger with time
References
● https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySPl_WVgvc
● https://www.livescience.com/47307-how-geckos-stick-and-unstick-feet.html
● https://www.britannica.com/science/van-der-Waals-forces
● https://www.livescience.com/2282-tape-mimics-sticky-gecko-feet.html
● https://wordssidekick.com/new-tape-mimics-sticky-gecko-feet-5959
● https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51593635_Direct_evidence_of_phospholipids_in_gecko_f
ootprints_and_spatula-substrate_contact_interface_detected_using_surface-
sensitive_spectroscopy
● https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2014/08/12/how-geckos-turn-their-stickiness-on-and-off/
● https://www.pngitem.com/middle/imJhooi_iucn-transparent-least-concern-hd-png-download/
● https://co.pinterest.com/pin/825636544161302065/
● https://www.zmescience.com/science/physics/direct-measurement-of-van-der-waals-force-made-
for-the-first-time/
● https://slideplayer.com/slide/4246590/