If you drop your telephone set and the screen shatters , you usually have two options : Get it repaired or replace the phone entirely .
pharmacist at the University of California at Riverside have excogitate what could become a third option : a phone screen fabric that can heal itself .
The researcher conducted several tests on the material , including its ability to repair itself from track and scratches . After they tore the material in half , it automatically stitched itself back together in under 24 hr , Chao Wang , a chemist leading the self - healing material research , tells Business Insider .
The material , which can stretch out to 50 times its original sizing , is made of a stretchable polymer and an ionic salt . It boast a special eccentric of bond call an ion - dipole antenna fundamental interaction , which is a force out between charged ion and polar mote . This means that when the material breaks or has a scratch , the ion and molecules attract to each other to heal the material .
This is the first time scientists have created a self - healing fabric that can conduct electrical energy , making it especially utilitarian for consumption for cellphone screens and batteries , Wang says .
Wang Lab
SomeLG phone , like the G Flex , already include a similar material on its back covers that canheal scratches . But this material ca n’t conduct electricity , so maker ca n’t use it for screen . Most sound screens have a grid of electrode underneath , and when you touch it , your finger ( which is also conductive ) completes a circuit , telling the phone what to do .
Wang predict that this newfangled ego - healing material will be used for phone screen and batteries by 2020 .
The squad will give its research at a Tuesday encounter of theAmerican Chemical Society , the cosmos ’s largest scientific arrangement devoted to the study of chemistry .
" Self - healing materials may seem far away for material app , but I trust they will come out very soon withcellphones , " he sound out . " Within three age , more self - heal products will go to market and switch our routine life . It will make our mobile phone phones achieve much better performance than what they can achieve right now . "
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