When a chair leg breaks or a cell phone shatters, either
must be repaired or replaced. But what if these materials could be programmed
to regenerate-themselves, replenishing the damaged or missing components, and
thereby extend their lifetime and reduce the need for costly repairs?
That potential is now possible according to researchers at
the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering, who have developed
computational models to design a new polymer gel that would enable complex
materials to regenerate themselves. The article, “Harnessing
Interfacially-Active Nanorods to Regenerate Severed Polymer Gels” (DOI:
10.1021/nl403855k), was published November 19 in the American Chemical Society
journal Nano Letters.