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Self-Healing Polymer Prolongs the Lifetime of Oils

Breakthrough:
A self-healing polymer with the potential to improve the performance of automotive oils and the efficiency of engines.

Business:
Inorganic and Materials Section, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

The Story:
Self-Healing Polymer Prolongs the Lifetime of Oils

Inspired by the self-healing properties of skin University of Warwick researchers in the UK have created self-healing polymers that can be added to automotive oils to prolong their life.

“Self-healing materials are inspired by biological systems where damage leads to an automatic healing response, for example, the self-repair of cuts and bruises on the human body. The application of this philosophy to polymers and materials is relatively new but gaining in interest for a number of potential applications,” the authors commented in the journal Polymer Chemistry.

The scientists also claim their polymers can help to improve engine efficiency.

Polymers at Breaking Point

It is not unusual for synthetic polymers to be added to automotive oils to improve on such properties as viscosity; however these can degrade and break under thermal and mechanical stresses which reduces the benefits they confer.

It is this that is driving research into new areas to look for polymers that can self-heal; either as a response to some external signal or automatically.

A team of researchers led by Professor David Haddleton of the University of Warwick's Inorganic and Materials Section has designed a self-healing polymer that can pull itself together in times of trouble. These new star-shaped polymers could be added to lubricants to maintain the physical properties of oils for longer.

Polymer, Heal Thyself

The methyl methacrylate polymer has vulnerable long arms which can be sheared off when stressed. But the scientists discovered that if they added a particular chemical combination to the polymer’s backbone the arms could re-heal via a reaction known as “Diels Alder cycloaddition”.

This particular type of chemistry has advantages over other sets of reactions in that there are no unwanted side reactions. This helps to minimize loss in the self-healing polymer’s performance.

Promising Research

Stephen Craig, who carries out research on self-healing polymers at Duke University commented on the discovery to the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry: “the field of self-healing materials represents a vibrant and promising research area, and truly molecular perspectives on material design and optimization as reported here, is likely to be critical as the field advances.”

More Work Before Commercialization

Before commercializing their technology the University of Warwick scientists have said they plan to optimize the chemistry still further before passing it on to their industrial collaborators, Lubrizol, for development in automotive lubricant applications.

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