A team of scientists created a unique self-healing material, which may be very useful for future devices and components. The team was allegedly inspired by the comic book character, Wolverine.

In the Marvel comics, Wolverine had the special ability to quickly heal himself from any form of injury and sickness. The team, which had members from University of California, Riverside, and University of Colorado, Boulder, said that their project was inspired by wound healing in nature. The self-healing materials could repair damage caused by normal wear, lengthen the lifespan and lower the cost of materials and products.

The researchers of the self-healing material published their findings in the journal Advanced Materials. They stated that the main difficulty in the development of the self-healing material involves identifying bonds that are stable and reversible under electrochemical conditions. Traditionally, self-healing materials or polymers use non-covalent bonds, which prove to be an issue since these are affected by electrochemical reactions that lower the performance of the materials.

Co-author Chao Wang solved the problem by using ion-dipole mechanisms, forces between charged ions and polar molecules that are highly stable even in electrochemical conditions. Wang fused a polar stretchable polymer with a mobile high-ionic-strength salt to make the self-healing material, which presented the properties that their team was aiming for.

The research team attempted to create the self-healing material in the same way that Wolverine regenerates, although they also intended to make it highly stretchable, transparent and conductive to be strong enough to support artificial muscles and boost various electronic devices, robots and batteries.

The developers of the self-healing material stated on URC Today that they are currently exploring the various applications. They demonstrated how the self-healing material can be used as an artificial muscle that contracts and expands according to external stimulus. They also showed how the material can self-heal by replicating wound-healing. Parts of the artificial muscle were divided into two separate portions, and the material successfully healed without relying on external stimuli. The artificial muscle ultimately returned to its original performance level before being cut.

The research team plans to continue testing the self-healing material. More updates and details are expected soon.