This year, at the American Chemical Society’s annual meeting, held in San Diego, California, scientists explained about self healing plastic. Scientists took inspiration from nature once again. The plastic behaves like skin and bleeds when scratched or cracked. These self healing capabilities would be useful in making bodies for smartphones, laptops and automobiles. These smart polymers may sound like coming from a Science Fiction movie, but you would soon see them in the market too.
What you need to know
This new plastic would have so many applications, from the gadget industry to the automobile manufacturing. When the polymer is cracked, a red colored liquid spills out (just like blood). This red fluid later reacts to various stimuli like change in temperature, change in the pH and light. After some time the liquid hardens to fill up the gaps and cracks by mending molecular breakages. This polymer would have a good application in airplane structures. The idea of this plastic is taken from humans and animals. We bleed when we have any kind of damage on our skin. Blood clogs up the wounds to heal the skin.
What’s next?
This would have a lot of applications in automobiles, space research, medicine and what not. This material would be a great building materials for fragile and accident prone gadgets like phones, laptops and tablets. A few months back Nissan made prototypes of a new iPhone case (Nissan Juke), which is the first self healing mobile phone case. Scientists are now working towards quick healing polymers which heal in a few minutes after cracking. This futuristic technology has very promising aspects in nearly every field of science.
Via: SkyNews