Self-Healing Polymer
March 25, 2014 | Terry Sharrer
This piece describes a “dynamic polyuria” developed at the University of Illinois, which has stretchable and self-healing characteristics as might be useful in paint manufacturing. But it does not make the point that polyuria and its co polymer polyurethane (the makings of spandex since 1959) are used medically for such things as artificial hearts and pacemaker leads. Implanted medical devices can fail when stresses erode the polymer insulation on their wires and electrodes. Thus, a self-healing polymer could extend the working life of implanted devices from the bionic eye to a “smart” prosthetic limb, et al. Note that the self-healing speeds up at body temperature. MORE
Image Credit: University of Illinois and GizMag.com