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Self-Healing Plastic

Self-Healing Plastic It’s a fact, things break over time. Take plastic for example; it gets weaker along with time, no matter how well it is made, and then, it breaks. But wouldn’t it be great if objects we own could just never break? Or if the objects we own could even repair themselves? Well believe it or not but there is a type of material, a self-healing plastic, which can mend itself repeatedly after breaking. This self-healing plastic could be a solution to many items that are made of plastic or that require plastic to function. Self-healing plastic was first developed six years ago by researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Campaign (UIUC). Since then, many other researchers have developed various types of self-healing plastics, some of them that are more solid and less breakable than others and some that can be repaired more often. The way self-healing plastic works is quite complicated. But basically, self-healing plastic is made with microcapsules filled with a chemical compound called dicyclopentadiene and this compound is mixed with a catalyst. A catalyst is a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction. So once the plastic cracks, the microcapsules break and release the dicyclopentadiene. The dicyclopentadiene then seeps into the crack and with the help of the catalyst, the plastic reforms. Although self-healing plastics sounds cool, it can be used for many useful things. For example, we could use self-healing plastic with medical implants. They can also be used in cars, trains, airplanes or even spacecraft, all of which need some plastic piece that often need to be replaced since they are not reparable. Actually, in a spacecraft, some pieces can’t even be replaced. So in this case, self-healing plastic can be really useful. Finally, there are many ways in which we could use self-healing plastic. The advantage of self-healing plastic speaks from itself. It can heal and reshape itself on its own. However, there are some disadvantages. First, it takes 10 hours for the dicyclopentadiene and the catalyst to enter the cracks and reform the plastic. So it could sometimes be more practical to change the piece and start over again instead of waiting 10 hours for the piece to reshape. Also, building the microcapsules is very complicated. The microcapsules have to be small enough to not affect the strength of the epoxy and big enough so that they contain enough dicyclopentadiene. A lot of money can be wasted if some microcapsules aren’t built correctly. Finally, a self-healing plastic piece can only reshape itself up to seven times. Of course this is still good, but the objective is to not replace a plastic piece for an extremely long time, so there is still room for improvement. In conclusion, self-healing plastic can be something that some companies may want to consider if they want their machines or plastic pieces to last longer. Self-healing plastic is an amazing concept that could revolutionize the engineering world. Resources:

http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotech/18841/

http://futurewire.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-healing_plastic

http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?article_id=218392982&cat=all