How this strange new material repairs itself – and your internal organs

ego - healing materials are substance that can knit themselves back together after being torn or broken . Here you may see a new self - healing hydrogel that could revolutionize how we treat internal injury to the tum .

hydrogel are squishy polymer chains that look something like gummi bears . They are very useful in medicine , because they take so much water they ’re as flexible as biologic tissues . Now , new research out of UCSDoffers a way to make these gels wedge together with incredible strength . Researchers pulled off this trick by adding dangling hydrocarbon side chains to the polymer connection that makes up the gel . With these in place , picture to an acidulous environs causes the ego - cure hydrogel to crumple together ( exposure to a introductory one makes it separate again ) .

That means that two piece of the hydrogel can be sew together , or damaged areas can knit together , simply by exposing it to environments of pH 3 or lower for just two seconds . High pH environments break up it apart again , but the outgrowth can be reprize many times without ill upshot . Not only that , but the strength of the bond is impressive . After just 10 seconds of bonding the join can take 2 kPa of accent – and when it breaks , it bring out in the middle of the gelatin , not at the juncture . The material continues to beef up for up to 24 minute of pic to the acid , eventually being able to deal 35±3 kPa of stress .

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The likely software of this are just freaking incredible — but some of the most interesting possibilities lie in music , particularly for treating breadbasket wounds . After all , the gut is an acid environment . You could hold closed stomach perforation until they heal , knowing that the hydrogel would heal itself from any damage due to the perpetual abject pH exposure .

Image credit : Joshua Knoff , UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering

MedicineScience

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