Researchers in Japan have developed a kind of 'healable' glass that can repair itself from cracks and breaks.
According to the research which was led by Professor Takuzo Aida from the university of Tokyo, revealed that the self healing glass could be used in fragile device like phone screens and other devices. The glass which is made from a low weight polymer called 'polyether-thioureas' can heal breaks when pressed together by hand without the need for the high heat to melt the material.
The properties in the polyether-thioureas glass were discovered by accident by graduate school student Yu Yanagisawa, while preparing the material as a glue. Yanagisawa found that when the surface of the polymer was cut, the edges would stick to each other, thus forming a strong sheet after being manually pressed for 30 seconds at 21°C. The regains its original strength after a couple of hours.
There have been several attempts to create a self healing technology. LG made the G Flex 2 smartphone in 2015, a device that came with a coating that was capable of self-healing minor scratches. Some time this year, researchers from the University of California developed a screen material from a stretchable polymer that could heal broken or cracked screen within a period of 24hrs.
Yanagisawa told the NHK that he hopes "the repairable glass becomes a new environment-friendly material that avoids the need to be thrown away if broken."