New Plastic That Can Repair Itself

Stanford chemical engineering Professor Zhenan Bao and her team have succeeded in making the first material that can both sense subtle pressure and heal itself when torn or cut. Their findings were published Nov. 11 in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

The "plastic skin" has a wide range of potential uses for mobile phones, battlefield armor and weapons, but that it won’t be ready for market for a bit. Funding from the U.S. Department of Defense helped to fund research on the plastic skin.

Here is one example of an earlier model: