The concept of self-healing material or technology  has been under research since a decade, with a view to reducing the risks and costs of cracking and damage in a wide range of materials and increasing the durability of materials to much greater extend.

This post briefly gives an idea about self-healing technology, so let’s start with a question, what are these self-healing materials?

Self-healing materials are a class of smart materials that have the structurally incorporated ability to repair damage caused by mechanical usage over time. The inspiration comes from biological systems, which have the ability to heal after being wounded. For a material to be defined as self-healing, it is necessary that the healing process occurs without human intervention.

Something more about it!

Self-healing method is possible with the help of Nanotechnology. Carbon nano-tubes can be used to sense and heal a crack. It is possible that Carbon nano-tubes can sense a crack within the structure, and then it can be used to supply healing agent to all the defected areas in the material, and this healing agent can be released whenever and wherever a crack or scratch appears. Carbon nano-tubes can be used for thermal transports to heat up the material at microscopic level so that the cracks or scratches can be removed from the material. In this way, it can heal a material.

Each Carbon nano-tube is less than 100 millionths of a meter in diameter, and this is what we call Nanotechnology. The first products to use these healing technique will most likely be paints; for example, a car can heals its own scratches on its painted surface, a scratch on any painted surface can be healed itself, and with more research and development it might be possible that this technique can work on many other things like on electronic gadgets or devices.  It will be possible that in coming year there will be cell phone which can heals scratch on their touchscreens themselves, and much more. I think, it’s a promising future technology.