They found that their conductive paste consisting of micrometer - sized silver (Ag) flakes, fluorine rubber, fluorine surfactant — commonly known as a
substance that reduces surface tension in liquid — and
organic solvent to
dissolve the fluorine rubber markedly outperformed the elastic conductor they had previously developed in 2015.
According to WHOI geochemist Dan Repeta, the answer may lie in the complex ways that bacteria break down
dissolved organic matter, a cocktail of
substances excreted into seawater by living organisms.