Scientists demonstrate silicone rubber has self-healing ability

Using a mechanism discovered in the 1950s, known as ‘siloxane equilibration’, the team cut a silicone rubber shape in half with a razor blade and found that it completely repaired itself when it was heated up.

Peiwen Zheng, a researcher at Massachusetts University and co-author of the paper published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, said: ‘When we rediscovered the forgotten unusual properties of silicones and combined them with today’s research interests, we found that the silicone material with the siloxane equilibration was an obvious candidate for a self-healing material.’

According to a report in PhyOrg, the researchers performed several experiments to test the theoretical predictions from papers published more than half a century ago and to extend some of the experiments carried out at that time.

In one experiment, the team prepared a siloxane-based mixture containing a cross-linking agent and a catalyst. The scientists then poured the solution into moulds of various shapes and heated them at 90°C for four hours. After removing the clear, rubbery silicone shapes from the moulds, the scientists described the silicone samples as ‘living polymer networks’.