How self-healing methods could make cracked plastic a thing of the past
Despite its many advantages, plastic can be difficult to fix, since even minor fractures can compromise its strength. But what if plastic could heal itself? Nancy Sottos and her team at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have developed composites that can repair themselves.
An early self-healing plastic developed by the team had microcapsules embedded throughout it. When a crack occurred, the capsules would burst, releasing resin and a catalyst to fill the crack.
According to Popular Science: "For things made entirely of composites, like car bumpers or airplane wings, microcapsules won’t cut it. Once the capsules are spent, no more healing can occur there. One of Sottos’ newest composites is laced with channels that can deliver the self-healing agent to fill cracks again and again. The material was able to heal the same spot 30 times in the lab. But Sottos says it could be 20 years before it’s reliable enough for safety-critical applications (i.e., we’ll have self-healing bumpers long before self-healing airplanes).
Materials in extreme environments require even more ingenuity. Instead of relying on an onboard catalyst, engineer Melik Demirel of Pennsylvania State University created a polymer whose healing reaction is triggered by water, along with heat and pressure. Its proteins mimic those of squid teeth, which heal themselves by reconnecting broken hydrogen bonds."
About the Author
Alexis GajewskiAlexis Gajewski
Senior Content Strategist
Alexis Gajewski is a manufacturing writer and editor with nearly 20 years of experience covering the people, practices, and technologies that keep industrial facilities running. For more than a decade, she served as Senior Content Strategist for Plant Services, creating content for plant managers, engineers, and maintenance professionals on a variety of industrial topics.
During her tenure, Alexis worked to develop the brand’s digital strategy and helped launch and produce Great Question: A Manufacturing Podcast. She also created The Lighter Side of Manufacturing, a weekly blog that explored the inventive and sometimes humorous side of the industry.
Alexis co-founded Influential Women in Manufacturing, a recognition program that honored 49 women in its first two years, earned an industry award for Best Product Launch, and received a proclamation from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and a commendation from U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth.
She also led newsroom operations and development at a large media company where she set editorial standards, developed training curriculum, and helped support AI adoption for more than 150 editors across 80+ brands spanning manufacturing, industrial processing, automation, and more.
Additionally, Alexis works as a freelance writer and editor, and her areas of interest include continuous improvement, the skilled workforce, and the role of emerging technology on the plant floor.
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