Rubber material that rebuilds itself

report

A material that is able to self-repair even when it is sliced in two has been invented by French researchers.

The as-yet-unnamed material - a form of artificial rubber - is made from vegetable oil and a component of urine.

The substance, described in the journal Nature, produces surfaces when cut that retain a strong chemical attraction to each other.

Pieces of the material join together again as if never parted without the need for glue or a special treatment.

This remarkable property comes from careful engineering of the molecules in the material.

What about the uses of this if applied to clothing, never tear that expensive leather jacket again. Tires, never have a flat again.

[edit on 20-2-2008 by soultorent]

Or you could geneticly manipulate me and turn me into wolverine...

without the blades though.......

Interesting discovery. It seems these days are witness to nice new inventions that could come in handy.

reply to post by soultorent


I highly doubt it is ever gonna be used in tires. Where is the money in that?
I could see it being used in seals (no, not the animal) and hoses though.

good point, no one would have to buy new tires, haha.

its pretty cool their talking about actually expanding it to other substances which would make ultra-durable goods... would be nice to never have to buy tires again

raptor1

Impressive! I wonder, how strong this material is since it used hydrogen bonding rather than covalent bonding. I also wonder how a cut edge would react with water, since it uses hydrogen bonding as well.

I'll have to keep an eye on this one, great find!

TheRedneck

reply to post by Beachcoma


I would think the money will probably be in the defense industry, I can think of a lot of potential uses there. Imagine a few years down the line, andyou'll have self repairing armour or something. Also, it would be handy in aviation, if it could re-seal a tire it could re-seal a hole in the fuselage at altitude, though it would need to work damn fast.

reply to post by soultorent


I recently went on a tour of the kennedy space centre and somewhere in that tour self healing materials were mentioned as an insulation for wiring that would repair and thus never short... sounds like a damn good idea to me!

I want boots made out of that stuff.

Will they use it widely in military applications?

Definately not tyres in the civillian market but a possibility of it being used in the forces.

I could definitely see this used for tires. They already have run-flat tires, but something like this would be far more effective.

Your tires will still wear out (or at least they'll be made to wear out) you just wont have to worry about flat tires anymore. Theres a huge potential for money there. Manufacturers already charge an arm and a leg for run-flats, they could charge even more for these.