Quantifying the free energy landscape between polymers and minerals

Higher organisms as well as medical and technological materials exploit mineral-polymer interactions, however, mechanistic understanding of these interactions is poorly constrained. Dynamic force spectroscopy can probe the free energy landscape of interacting bonds, but interpretations are challenged by the complex mechanical behavior of polymers. Here we restate the difficulties inherent to applying DFS to polymer-linked adhesion and present an approach to gain quantitative insight into polymer-mineral binding.