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Nature Chemistry (4 July 2008) | doi:10.1038/nchem.31

Self-healing coatings: On the mend

Gavin Armstrong

Self healing is a property we all know; scratch or cut yourself and within days the damaged area has been replaced with fresh skin. Other materials are not so functional, but now Daria Andreeva and co-workers at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany, have developed a coating made of alternating nanolayers sandwiched together, which can guard against corrosion and heal itself after being scratched.