Scientists in Singapore have prepared a coating for metals that heals itself after being scratched to prevent corrosion of the metal underneath.
Unlike other examples of such coatings, this one, developed by Mingxing Huang and Jinglei Yang of Nanyang Technological University, requires no catalyst and can be used at 40 degrees Celsius.
The team prepared the coating by encapsulating the highly reactive compound hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI) inside polymer shells to form microcapsules. They then dispersed the microcapsules into epoxy resin and applied this coating to steel. When the coating was scratched, the punctured microcapsules released the HDI, which reacted with water to form polyurea and this sealed the damaged region… Read the rest of the article in Chemistry World or the paper by Mingxing Huang and Jinglei Yang here.
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