USC Viterbi faculty and students develop a 3D-printed material that can repair itself all on its own.
Instead of throwing away your broken boots or cracked toys, why not let them fix themselves? Researchers at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering have developed 3D-printed rubber materials that can do just that.
Assistant Professor Qiming Wang works in the world of 3D printed materials, creating new functions for a variety of purposes, from flexible electronics to sound control. Now, working with Viterbi students Kunhao Yu, An Xin, and Haixu Du, and University of Connecticut Assistant Professor Ying Li, they have made a new material that can be manufactured quickly and is able to repair itself if it becomes fractured or punctured. This material could be game-changing for industries like shoes, tires, soft robotics, and even electronics, decreasing manufacturing time while increasing product durability and longevity.
The material is manufactured using a 3D printing method that uses photopolymerization. This process uses light to solidify a liquid resin in a desired shape or geometry. To make it self-healable, they had to dive a little deeper into the chemistry behind the material.
Photopolymerization is achieved through a reaction with a certain chemical group called thiols. By adding an oxidizer to the equation, thiols transform into another group called disulfides. It is the disulfide group that is able to reform when broken, leading to the self-healing ability. Finding the right ratio between these two groups was the key to unlocking the materials’ unique properties.
“When we gradually increase the oxidant, the self-healing behavior becomes stronger, but the photopolymerization behavior becomes weaker,” explained Wang. “There is competition between these two behaviors. And eventually we found the ratio that can enable both high self-healing and relatively rapid photopolymerization.”
In just 5 seconds, they can print a 17.5-millimeter square, completing whole objects in around 20 minutes that can repair themselves in just a few hours. In their study, published in NPG Asia Materials, they demonstrate their material’s ability on a range of products, including a shoe pad, a soft robot, a multiphase composite, and an electronic sensor.
After being cut in half, in just two hours at 60 degrees Celsius (four for the electronics due to the carbon used to transmit electricity) they healed completely, retaining their strength and function. The repair time can be decreased just by raising the temperature.
“We actually show that under different temperatures – from 40 degrees Celsius to 60 degrees Celsius – the material can heal to almost 100 percent,” said Yu, who was first-author of the study and is studying structural engineering. “By changing the temperature, we can manipulate the healing speed, even under room temperature the material can still self-heal”
After conquering 3D-printable soft materials, they are now working to develop different self-healable materials along a range of stiffnesses, from the current soft rubber, to rigid hard-plastics. These could be used for vehicle parts, composite materials, and even body armor.
Learn more: Broke your shoe? What if it could repair itself?
The Latest on: 3D printed self-healing materials
[google_news title=”” keyword=”3D printed self-healing materials” num_posts=”10″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
via Google News
The Latest on: 3D printed self-healing materials
- New bio-resin that can be recycled back to redefine 3D printingon May 18, 2024 at 11:19 am
Researchers from the University of Birmingham have created a new type of resin that can be recycled within an almost fully closed-loop system, allowing products to be broken down into their ...
- Mud bricks to smart concrete: Where are building materials headed next?on May 17, 2024 at 9:45 pm
The oldest bricks discovered to date can be found at Tell Aswad in Syria, and date back to around 7500 B.C. These bricks were shaped with clay or mud and left to dry in the baking sun, allowing them ...
- What We Can Learn from Fire Ants about Making Self-Healing Materialson May 17, 2024 at 9:23 am
When flooding hits a region where fire ants live, their survival response is to latch together to form a buoyant “raft” that floats and keeps the colony united. Think of it like a condensed, adaptive ...
- What fire ants can teach us about making better, self-healing materialson May 14, 2024 at 5:00 pm
self-healing polymers. "Many polymers are held together by dynamic bonds that break, but can reform," Wagner said. "When pulled slowly enough, these bonds have time to restructure the material so ...
- What fire ants can teach us about making better self-healing materialson May 14, 2024 at 5:00 pm
self-healing polymers. "Many polymers are held together by dynamic bonds that break, but can reform," Wagner said. "When pulled slowly enough, these bonds have time to restructure the material so ...
- The Best 3D Printers for 2024on May 1, 2024 at 5:00 pm
More affordable than ever, 3D printers are booming for personal, professional, and educational use. Here's everything to know before you buy one, along with the top models from our hands-on testing.
- Affordable starter home is 3D-printed in just 18 hourson April 25, 2024 at 8:48 am
One of the most exciting possibilities of 3D-printed architecture is that it ... by 2030 by adopting alternative construction materials like earth and straw. "We want to team up with partners ...
- The world’s largest 3D printer just got supersizedon April 22, 2024 at 4:59 pm
That includes scaling up its 3D-printed home technology using bio-based materials to eventually demonstrate how printed neighborhoods can offer an avenue to affordable housing to address ...
- These 3D-Printed Clay Coffee Cups Are Disposable, but Can They Save Us From Microplastics?on April 22, 2024 at 5:00 am
It's a 3D-printed clay vessel inspired by disposable ... To emphasize this idea, GaeaStar's promotional materials show people crumbling the shattered remains of a clay cup into their gardens.
- Researchers Unlocked The Secret To The Durability Of Roman Structures: It's Self-Healing Concreteon April 15, 2024 at 6:50 am
Self-healing concrete is the reason ... could expand not only the service life of these materials but also [improve] the durability of 3D-printed concrete formulations,” Masic said.
via Bing News