Smart Rubber

Smart Rubber

Smart rubber is a polymer that is able to "heal" when torn. It can heal itself at room temperature and can be repeated multiple times. The supramolecular self-healing rubber can be processed, re-used, and recycled. The reason this can happens is because you can tear the rubber apart and lightly place it back together and it will start to self-heal. The smart rubber depends only on hydrogen bonds which makes this all possible. This process doesn't depend on covalent bonding or ionic bonding, which are present in normal rubber. Unlike covalent and ionic bonding, hydrogen bonding will occur simply by pressing the two faces of a substance together.


The rubber’s stress strain curve resembles that of soft rubbers. The breaking point is more than 500% strain. After stretching to 300% at a 2.5 mm per min and letting go your residual strain is less than 5%. This polymer is able to return to the original size and shape when it is deformed but only after you release the stress. The longer the self-healing rubber is in contact with the recently broken piece the better the healing process is. Even with contact though of fifteen minutes the smart rubber can be stretched or deformed up to 200%


The places that are healed back together are not visible to the human eye but the rubber will break at the scar unless you allow longer healing times.


The self-healing process is efficient since there are large numbers of ready to go groups that want to link together. After a certain point you cannot bond and during this time your thermal equilibrium is reached.


The time varies with temperature the rubber is stored at. The rubber was tested by storing the cut pieces in varying temperatures and then were dropped back to room temperature to test the self-healing properties.

  • It was found that as temperature went up the maximum waiting time went down.

This is the Table of values that shows the temperature at which the samples were stored at right after being cut and the maximum amount of time before you reach thermal equilibrium and you cannot bond the cut or torn samples back together.

Temperature (°C) Time (hrs)
23 168
40 48
60 1.6
90 0.25
120 0.08

Read more about Smart Rubber:  Bonding Information, Compared To Rubber, Future Applications, Real World Versions, Synthesis, See Also

Famous quotes containing the words smart and/or rubber:

    “Among the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”
    —Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)

    “Time for the flat-headed man. I recognize that listener,
    Him with the platitudes and rubber doughnuts,
    Melting at the knees, a varicose horror.
    Hello, hello. My nerves knew you, dear boy.
    Have you come to unhinge my shadow?”
    —Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)