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Self-healing
gel to boost
foldable electronics
Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The
University of Texas, Austin have devel oped a first-of-its-kind
self-healing gel that
repairs and connects electronic circuits,
creating opportunities
for the development of flexible
electronics, biosensors and batteries as energy storage
devices.
Although technology is moving toward lighter, flexible,
foldable and rollable electronics, the existing circuits that
power them are not built
to flex freely and repeatedly
self-repair cracks or breaks that can happen from normal
wear and tear.
Until now, self-healing materials have relied on application
of external stimuli like
light or heat.
The UT Austin “supergel“ material has high conductivity
the degree to which a material conducts electricity and
strong mechanical and electrical selfhealing properties.
“In the last decade, the self-healing concept has been
popularised by people working on different applications,
but this is the first time it has been done without external
stimuli,“ said mechanical
engineering assistant professor
Yu.
“There's no need for heat or light to fix the crack or break
in a circuit or battery,
which is often required by previously
developed self-healing
materials.“
Yu and his team created the self-healing gel by combining
two gels: a
self-assembling metal-ligand gel that provides
self-healing properties
and a polymer hydrogel that is a
conductor.
A paper on the synthesis of their hydrogel appears in the
November issue of Nano Letters.
In this latest paper, the researchers describe how they
used a disc-shaped liquid crystal molecule to enhance the
conductivity,
biocompatibility and permeability of their
polymer hydrogel.
They were able to achieve about ten times the conductivity
of other polymer
hydrogels used in bioelectronics and
conventional rechargeable batteries.
The nanostructures that make up the gel are the smallest
structures capable of
providing efficient charge and
energy transport.
The second ingredient of the self-healing hybrid gel is a
metal-ligand supramolecular gel. Using terpyridine
molecules to create the framework and zinc atoms as
a structural glue, the molecules form structures that
are able to self-assemble, giving it the ability to
automatically
heal after a break.
When the supramolecular gel is introduced into the polymer
hydrogel, forming the
hybrid gel, its mechanical strength
and elasticity are enhanced.
To construct the self-healing electronic circuit, Yu believes
the self-healing gel
would not replace the typical metal
conductors that transport electricity, but it could be used
to join for other parts
of the circuit.
“This gel can be applied at the circuit's junction points
because that's often
where you see the breakage,“
he said. “One day, you could glue or paste the gel to
these junctions so that
the circuits could be more
robust and harder to
break.“
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MM27NOV15
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