Glass developed by University of Tokyo can completely 'heal' itself after breaking
Glass is everywhere, and it’s not just on the screens of our mobile phones – these days, even the back casing is made of the stuff. Obviously, the problem is that glass is so fragile. Every time we drop our phones, the main concern is, “Did the screen crack!?”
But it seems in time to come, we may not need to worry about this because a glass that can recover from cracks has been developed in Japan. This amazing and unprecedented glass, named polyether thiourea, is developed by a research group in University of Tokyo – notably Professor Takuzo Aida and graduate student Yuu Yanagisawa.
The research group was originally trying to develop a new kind of adhesive. But unexpectedly, they discovered this material with self-restoring function.
Even tens of seconds after the glass broke, just by pushing the two pieces together is enough to fix the glass. If you wait even longer, the glass would regain its original strength.
Usually, such self-restoring is seen in soft materials like rubber, making it seem like a miracle when it happens in glass.
Yanagisawa commented, “When we found this, I was in doubt and repeated the experiment countless times. I’ll be glad if this self-recovering glass, as opposed to the vicious cycle of glass breaking and discarding, can become a material that is gentle to the environment.”
Japanese people who saw the news were stoked. “What is this? It’s so amazing,”, said one commenter. “I want this to be the mobile phone screen!” said another. And: “It would be perfect if the pieces recovered seamlessly.”
Nonetheless, it is a breakthrough and hopefully, we will never have to worry about shattered phone screens again!
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