Americans researchers created an innovative plastic material, which "self-healing", That is, it closes itself with any holes open on it.
First time
Until now, similar polymeric materials have been developed that could automatically repair an invisible hole of just a few millimeters. But for the first time, the new material manages to restore only enough holes of one centimeter in diameter, visible to the naked eye.
This ability can be exploited in the future, among other things, in new types of synthetic materials for airplane wings or for spacecraft, which will repair themselves in the air or in space, when they suffer a - potentially catastrophic - crack that cannot be repaired human hand in flight. Other potential practical applications lie in its field medicines (e.g. in a new type of surgical implants), geology (automatic repair of damage in drilling rigs) or the military (e.g. closing a bullet hole).
The mechanism
Researchers at the University of Illinois (from Aeronautics, Chemistry, Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering), led by Scott White, have created a pioneering mechanism in the plastic that allows them to activate two liquid substances which, when needed, react chemically and are gradually converted into gel, which eventually solidifies, restoring any damage.
Said liquid substances move towards its point damages through an artificial circulatory system, i.e. special microscopic channels with a diameter of 330 micrometers (millionths of a meter), which have been previously opened inside the plastic and which imitate the network of arteries and veins of the human body.
As the experiments showed on a three-millimeter plastic sheet, a hole nearly a centimeter in diameter, starting with cracks covering an area of 3,5 centimeter in diameter, fills with the material in 20 minutes and this has solidified on hard plastic in about three hours . However, the restored surface is somewhat less resistant than the original one.
Ήδη οι ερευνητές εργάζονται για να βελτιώσουν κι άλλο τόσο τον ρυθμό αποκατάστασης της βλάβης, όσο και την ανθεκτικότητα του υλικού. Επίσης, σχεδιάζουν δοκιμές του νέου υλικού σε ακραίες συνθήκες (υγρασίας, θερμοκρασίας κ.α.). Η discovery is published in the journal "Science".
