Current electronic devices are becoming faster and denser, but such complex circuitry is prone to reliability problems, and once one tiny circuit within an integrated chip breaks, the whole chip or even whole device is unusable. A team of University of Illinois engineers has developed a self-healing system capable to repair a cracked circuit by ... »
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) researchers have been inspired by climbing plants to develop a polymer foam surface coating with a closed cell construction capable to reduce the pressure loss after the membrane is damaged. Aside making future inflatable structures more resistant, the technology could provide them with a longer operational ... »
A team of researchers in the United States and Switzerland have developed a polymer-based material that can heal itself with the help of UV lighting. Metallo-supramolecular polymers are solid materials capable to become a supple liquid that fills crevasses and gaps left by scrapes and scratches once it is exposed to ultraviolet light for less than ... »
Inspired by the hair-thin holdfast fibers that mussels secrete to stick against rocks, researchers from the University of Chicago managed to manufacture a synthetic version of the self-healing sticky substance used by mussels. The substance could be used as an adhesive or coating for underwater machinery or in biomedical settings as a surgical adhesive or ... »
Researchers, from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, are also working on capsule additives designed to heal failures in lithium-ion battery electrodes, to prevent the short-circuiting that can sometimes cause a fire. Capsules filled with conductive nanotubes that rip open under mechanical stress could be placed on circuit boards in the areas that are important ... »
A concrete material developed at the University of Michigan can heal itself when it cracks. No human intervention is necessary—just water and carbon dioxide. New substance could make infrastructure safer and more durable. Self-healing is possible because the material is designed to bend and crack in narrow hairlines rather than break and split in wide ... »
