Science Daily December 7, 2022 Researchers at Cornell University have introduced damage intelligent soft-bodied systems via a network of self-healing light guides for dynamic sensing (SHeaLDS). Exploiting the intrinsic damage resilience of light propagation in an optical waveguide, in combination with a tough, transparent, and autonomously self-healing polyurethane urea elastomer, SHeaLDS enabled damage resilient and intelligent robots by self-healing cuts as well as detecting this damage and controlling the robot’s actions accordingly. With optimized material and structural design for hyperelastic deformation of the robot and autonomous self-healing capacity, SHeaLDS provided reliable dynamic sensing at large strains with no drift or […]
Tag Archives: Self-healing material
Self-healing soft material outsmarts nature
Nanowerk July 27, 2020 Current self-healing materials have shortcomings such as low healing strength and long healing times limit their practical application. An international team of researchers (USA – State University of Pennsylvania, Germany, Turkey) studied the molecular structure and amino acid sequences of squid proteins and developed a new stretchable biosynthetic material using protein engineering. The squid takes longer to heal because the molecular structure of the proteins inside its tentacles is not perfectly intertwined. With the laboratory-developed squid-inspired material, the scientists changed the nanostructure of the molecules until they created crosslinks between all of them in such a […]
Self-healing material can build itself from carbon in the air
MIT News October 11, 2018 In proof-of-concept experiments a team of researchers in the US (MIT, UC Riverside) used, a gel matrix composed of a polymer made from aminopropyl methacrylamide and glucose, an enzyme called glucose oxidase, and the chloroplasts (from spinach), that becomes stronger as it incorporates the carbon. It is not yet strong enough to be used as a building material, though it might function as a crack filling or coating material. The results point to a new class of materials capable of using atmospheric CO2 fixation as a regeneration source, finding utility as self‐healing coatings, construction materials, […]