New material helps the car heal itself

Like human skin, this new plastic turns red when it is scratched or damaged and heals itself. With this material, broken cars can recover as new.

Scientists are gradually getting closer to creating self-healing plastic , containing the sci-fi features of science fiction for everything, from aircraft that repair broken parts to cars that are scratched in The new car park has no scratches.

Researchers have reported a material that has the ability to change color when impacted and heal itself of damage, based on light or other stimuli.

Marek Urban, a polymer scientist at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg (USA), presented some of his latest studies at the American Chemical Society meeting in San Diego on March 27.

Damaged cars like this are no longer a problem of the future.

'There are millions of applications needed for this material, from transportation, space, energy, cosmetics, health, medicine ., all you dream of' - Mr. Marek Urban said.

One of the first breakthroughs in the self-healing materials industry was in 2001, when researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) figured out how to embed covers in polymers.

Long chains of repeating molecular units are associated with chemical bonds. When the material is damaged, the viruses break apart, dispersing the liquid agent that can repair the damage.

Despite such breakthroughs, these materials have not really healed themselves, says Christopher Weder, a polymer scientist at the University of Friborg in Switzerland - something that stimulates self-healing.

By 2009, the self-healing polymers, when exposed to ultraviolet rays, were developed by Urban. Last year, Mr. Weder and his colleagues used ultraviolet light as a stimulant during self healing. The basic principle is based on a good model in 2001 but uses shorter molecules and adds metal ions.

Accordingly, when exposed to specific light, temperature, or in certain pH conditions, the molecules approach each other. Urban's new material turned red when damaged and began to heal itself.

Mr. Weder told Discovery news: 'This is the first example of self-healing materials and the ability to change colors. No one has done this before. Natural mothers have given the entire biological system the ability to self-heal, including skin, DNA, bark . Our new plastic will try to imitate nature, having red signals when broken and self-altering and resetting when exposed to light, temperature or pH '.