This is what Amit Das and colleagues were interested in addressing with their research.
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Rubber is made of long strands of molecules and when your tire is punctured, these strands break.
A cut in a modern vehicle tire typically can’t be patched.
Currently, tires are manufactured using the curing process of vulcanization – this involves adding sulfur or other compounds to the rubber, boosting the finished product’s durability by forming cross-links between the polymer chains that make up the material.
Testing – by different mechanical analysis and scanning electron microscopy – showed that a cut in the material healed at room temperature, a property that could allow a tire to mend itself while parked.
The researchers turned to a simple approach that converted widely used, commercially available bromobutyl rubber into a highly elastic material imbued with self-healing properties. Scientists have found a way to turn rubber into a “self-healing” material.
Other researchers have begun developing self-healing rubber earlier than the study but numerous prototypes produced were not able to achieve long-term stability.
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“Moreover, the cross-linked character of the modified rubber without using any conventional curatives is first time reported here”. That could change in the future though, according to a report in the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials & Interfaces journal. With their new process though, the researchers avoid vulcanization while still making the rubber durable and elastic, and adding the self-healing ability.
