Page 68 - Plastics News November 2018

teChnoLogy

Breakthrough in self-healing materials

he cost of making plastics, paints, coatings for about his latest breakthrough is that if a company wanted
Tcell phone screens and other materials that heal to bring the technology to market, it would no longer have
themselves like skin could be dramatically reduced thanks to build a new factory to produce self-healing polymers,
to a breakthrough that a Clemson University team detailed Urban said. Urban estimated that increasing the scale to
in the latest edition of the journal Science. Marek Urban make polymers or paints by the hundreds of gallons could
and his team wrote about how they were able to give self- be done in six to 12 months. "For anybody who wants to
healing qualities to polymers that are used in relatively make these types of self-healing materials, they would
inexpensive commodities, such as paints, plastics and have to essentially design a synthetic process and scale
coatings. The next step is to go from making small amounts it up," Urban said. "
in a lab to producing large quantities. "It's not available
at the industrial scale, but it's very close," said Urban,
who is the J.E. Sirrine Foundation Chair and Professor in The Cora ball to reduce marine
the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at
Clemson.Researchers have been making small batches pollution
of self-healing polymers for the last two decades, but
oncern is mounting over the volume of plastics in our
Coceans and, in particular, how Can technology help
address the problem of tiny particles of plastic and other
synthetic materials that re infiltrating every part of our
ecosystem and the and the answer is yes . Ms Miller,
who had studied marine archaeology, decided to devote
herself to keeping plastics from ever reaching the ocean
. She began designing and selling a special gadget for
capturing those tiny bits of synthetic material - called
microfibres - that come off our clothes in the wash.Four
inches (10cm) in diameter and made from recycled and
recyclable plastic, the Cora Ball imitates the structure
of coral in the ocean. While it doesn't catch everything,
the company says it captures between a quarter and a
third of microfibres
producing them on a commercial scale has so far been
largely cost prohibitive. Urban said he and his team took in every wash.
advantage of interactions between co-polymers that he Cora Ball is one of
likened to spaghetti strands with little brushes on the several small start-
side. The longer the spaghetti strands get, the more they ups working to keep
become entangled, he said. The side groups interlock microplastics and
like two interlaced hands, making it harder to pull them other microfibres out
apart, Urban said. "At the same time, they like each other," of the water system.
he said. "So, when you pull them out, they come back The shocking truth
together. It becomes self-healable at that point. is that we could be
ingesting 11,000
"As simple as this may sound, these studies also revealed pieces of plastic a year just through eating shellfish,
that ubiquitous and typically weak van der Waals says Ghent University's Lisbeth Van Cauwenberghe. It's a
interactions in plastics, when oriented, will result in self- pollution we all contribute to when we wash our clothes.
healing. This discovery will impact the development of If just 10% of US households used Cora Ball it would keep
sustainable materials using weak bonding which becomes the equivalent of 30 million water bottles from washing
collectively very strong when oriented." What's significant into public waterways a year, claims Rachael Miller.

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