University of Tokyo researchers develop repairable polymer

December 21, 2017

Tokyo- A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo recently said they have developed a hard transparent polymer that can be repaired at room temperatures if fragments are put together.

The achievement was published last week on the online edition of US journal Science by the team, including Yu Yanagisawa of the university's School of Engineering and Takuzo Aida, professor at the school.

If the technology is applied to products such as automobile windows, their durability and safety are likely to be strengthened, according to the team.

The polymer is an organic compound called polyether thiourea and classified as organic glass.

In an experiment, a sheet of the polymer one centimeter long, 2 centimeters wide and 2 millimeters thick was cut with scissors into two pieces.

These were compressed for 30 seconds at a temperature of 21 degrees Celsius. Immediately after that, a 300-gram load was put, but the merged pieces did not separate. Several hours later, the merged sheet restored its former strength.

The team repeated experiments with substances with slightly different molecular structures, and found that for the mergers of cut surfaces of materials required relatively short chains of high molecules and a quick recovery of hydrogen bond to tie molecular chains. Jiji Press