Self-healing tires

Harvard's self-healing rubber invention will revolutionize the tire and auto industries.

Harvard University’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has made a revolutionary discovery: a new type of rubber that can heal itself. We’ve heard of self-healing materials before, but for a dry, solid like rubber, it’s truly novel and incredible.

The self-healing rubber that SEAS is working on is a combination of hydrogels that can self-heal using water to create reversible bonds. In self-healing hydrogels, the molecular network structure can self-renew bonds when old bonds are broken. It is not much different from the principle of wound healing in animals.

Self-healing, self-recovering rubber invented by Harvard University experts.

Self-healing hydrogels are now used in the medical field for tissue engineering and regeneration. SEAS researchers have developed a hybrid rubber that combines covalent and reversible bonds linked by “molecular threads” made of dissociated polymers. The resulting product has a complex structure and is extremely strong, even stronger than traditional rubber, but still leaves gaps for self-healing.

Self-healing materials are not new, according to a Harvard press release. Researchers at SEAS have developed hydrogels that can self-heal by combining water with reversible bonds, allowing the material to “heal.” However, healing dry materials like rubber is more difficult, because rubber is made of polymers that are bonded together by permanent bonds. Although these bonds are extremely strong, once broken, they will never be able to be re-bonded without special conditions.

"So what does this mean for tires? Imagine we could use this material to make rubber tires, and if your tire gets punctured, you wouldn't have to replace it immediately, but it would heal itself while the car is running, helping you avoid accidents," said Sichuan University professor Jinrong Wu.

Using this advanced rubber in tire manufacturing will increase tire life and increase safety for vehicles. Although the development of this type of rubber application takes a long time, this is truly a meaningful invention for the development of the automobile industry in the future.

According to VNN