History of Adhesive

The English word glue was loaned from French in the late medieval period, ultimately from Late Latin glus, glutem "glue", replicing Old English lím.

The oldest known adhesive, dated to approximately 200,000 BC, is from spear stone flakes glued to a wood with birch-bark-tar, which was found in central Italy. The use of compound glues to haft stone spears into wood dates back to round 70,000 BC. Evidence for this has been found in Sibudu Cave, South Africa and the compound glues used were made from plant gum and red ochre The Tyrolean Iceman had weapons fixed together with the aid of glue.

6000-year-old ceramics show evidence of adhesives based upon animal glues made by rendering animal products such as horse teeth. During the times of Babylonia, tar-like glue was used for gluing statues. The Egyptians made much use of animal glues to adhere furniture, ivory, and papyrus. The Mongols also used adhesives to make their short bows, and the Natives Americans of the eastern United States used a mixture of spruce gum and fat as adhesives to fashion waterproof seams in their birchbark canoes.

In medieval Europe, egg whites were used as glue to decorate parchments with gold leaf. The first actual glue factory was founded in Holland in the early 1700s. In the 1750s, the English introduced fish glue. As the modern world evolved, several other patented materials, such as bones, starch, fish, and casein, were introduced as alternative materials for glue manufacture. Modern glues have improved flexibility, toughness, curing rate, and chemical resistance.

Adhesive

An adhesive, or glue, is a mixture in a liquid or semi-liquid state that adheres or bonds items together.

Nitrocellulose adhesive outside a tube

Adhesives may come from either natural or synthetic sources. Some modern adhesives are extremely strong, and are becoming increasingly important in modern construction and industry. The types of materials that can be bonded using adhesives are virtually limitless, but they are especially useful for bonding thin materials. Adhesives usually require a controlled temperature to cure or set. They can be electrically and thermally conductive or non-conductive. The earliest date for a simple glue is 200,000 BC and for a compound glue 70,000 BC.

Biopolymer DNA

Biopolymers are polymers produced by living organisms. Cellulose, strarch and chitin, proteins and peptides, and DNA and RNA are all examples of biopolymers, in which the monomeric units, respectively, are sugars, animo acids, and nucleoties.

DNA is a biopolymer

is Cellulose is a biopolymer

Cellulose is both the most common biopolymer and the most common organic compound on Earth. About 33 percent of all plant matter is cellulose (the cellulose content of cotton is 90 percent and that of wood is 50 percent).