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Published online 20 February 2008 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2008.611

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Self-healing rubber bounces back

Broken bits of rubber can stick themselves back together again.

Snap this stretchy piece of rubber in two, and it will heal itself back into a stretchy piece of rubber again. The material's eerie ability to 'heal' itself means that it can broken, stuck and stretched time and time again.

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  • This article is somewhat misleading in that it implies that other self-healing materials require heat or pressure to achieve healing. Several systems, including, but not limited to, catalyst systems based on Grubbs' catalyst and tungsten (VI) chloride, solvent based systems, and elastomer systems have all been demonstrated to achieve healing with only light contact pressure and room temperature.

    • 20 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: Jason Kamphaus
  • its just being tested to check the staus of Add your own comment

    • 20 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: Ankit Sharma
  • It is very amazing

    • 21 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: li ming
  • This is a very fascinating rubber...!! I would like to know more about the application of this material in various fields, e.g. health care, defense, space technology, automobile, etc....

    • 21 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: Tony Kurian
  • Could I patch a broken tire with it?

    • 22 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: Sarah Gross
  • Does that means we do not have to worry about breaking things made from that kind of stuff?

    • 23 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: yongli liu
  • It is really interesting.

    • 24 Feb, 2008
    • Posted by: sandip jadhav