MATERIAL self-healing - Intelligent Polymers

The journal Nature recently published an article that says that a group of Swiss researchers (University of Freiburg) and American, has developed a material that has the ability to repair itself in less than a minute by exposure to ultraviolet light.



This is a new polymer (polymers are produced by the union of hundreds of thousands of small molecules called monomers, which are large chains of various shapes) can prolong the life of many materials that suffer wear and tear or breakage accidental breakages and repairing those scratches on its surface, simply exposing them to ultraviolet light.







Some features of this new material are:

1- Most polymer-based materials are repaired by direct heating of the affected area, this new material is rubbery and contains metallic compounds that absorb ultraviolet light and convert it to heat localized, allowing self-repair.



2 has the advantage of performing repairs right at the place where is the damaged part.

3 Physical chemical process occurs with the ultraviolet light that stimulates the polymer and converted to heat energy absorbed.

According to lead study author Stuart Rowan, professor of macromolecular engineering at Case Western Reserve University (USA), these polymers have the "Napoleon complex", "Actually, they are quite small, but they are designed to behave as if they were great. "

The new material has been created through a process known as supramolecular assembly. Conventional polymers are formed with a long chain molecules with thousands of atoms, but instead these new materials are composed of small molecules, assembled into a polymer chain using metal ions as "molecular glue". When incident thereon ultraviolet light, the material, in solid principle, becomes a liquid flows easily. When the light goes out, meets the material and solidifies again, restoring their properties (the glue melts and allows the material to flow like a liquid and repair failures, once the light is removed, the glue becomes to be located in the chain and the material becomes hard again).



During the investigation, several samples of this material were damaged and apply light scratches on them are "filled" and disappeared in seconds. Further tests showed that can damage and repair the same area of ​​the material several times with no problems.

Example repair scratches on a vehicle:



This discovery opens up a wealth of possibilities for sectors such as Automotive, Industrial and Construction.

The University of Mississippi has also managed to create a polymer that could use ultraviolet light to activate the self-healing property.

It is based on three materials, the principal is polyurethane, which is an elastic polymer which itself has substantial resistance to scratching and breakage. Furthermore, to repair two other components, OXE (oxetane) and CHI (chitosan) are used.



The operation is as follows, when the polyurethane is damaged, as the structure of the oxetane ring opens to create two reactive terminals. When the ultraviolet light range, this function as activator to the chitosan, to form new bonds with oxetane terminations and thereby the breaches in the polymer. The operation of this system is similar to that of the human body.

Moreover, because the polyurethane mixture is not sensitive to humidity, the dry or humid weather conditions do not affect the repair process.





Who does not want one of these?


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