Professor Develops Self-Healing Rubber
Ludwik Leibler, a professor at Paris’ Industrial Physics and Chemistry Higher Educational Institution. Has developed a rubber compound that heals itself. Leibler and his team say their rubber is based on fatty acids and urea (yes a component of urine). To all intents and purposes it looks like any other strip of rubber band. However, if you cut it, then hold it together for 15 minutes it automatically re-establishes its molecular bonding.
Althought the 15 minute rule would seem to preclude the material from use in tyres, it may not be long before this hurdle is overcome. “The discovery is very close to [being used in] business,” Takuzo Aida, a chemist at Tokyo University, told the Journal Nature. Self-healing rubber could have applications in anything from adhesives to bicycle tyres.
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