Self-Healing Material Can Build Itself From Carbon In the Air (mit.edu) 63
MIT chemical engineers have reportedly designed a material that can react with carbon dioxide from the air, "to grow, strengthen, and even repair itself." According to MIT News, "The polymer, which might someday be used as construction or repair material or for protective coatings, continuously converts the greenhouse gas into a carbon-based material that reinforces itself." From the report: The current version of the new material is a synthetic gel-like substance that performs a chemical process similar to the way plants incorporate carbon dioxide from the air into their growing tissues. The material might, for example, be made into panels of a lightweight matrix that could be shipped to a construction site, where they would harden and solidify just from exposure to air and sunlight, thereby saving on the energy and cost of transportation. The material the team used in these initial proof-of-concept experiments did make use of one biological component -- chloroplasts, the light-harnessing components within plant cells, which the researchers obtained from spinach leaves. The chloroplasts are not alive but catalyze the reaction of carbon dioxide to glucose. Isolated chloroplasts are quite unstable, meaning that they tend to stop functioning after a few hours when removed from the plant. In their paper, [the researchers] demonstrate methods to significantly increase the catalytic lifetime of extracted chloroplasts. In ongoing and future work, the chloroplast is being replaced by catalysts that are nonbiological in origin.
The material the researchers used, a gel matrix composed of a polymer made from aminopropyl methacrylamide (APMA) and glucose, an enzyme called glucose oxidase, and the chloroplasts, becomes stronger as it incorporates the carbon. It is not yet strong enough to be used as a building material, though it might function as a crack filling or coating material, the researchers say. The team has worked out methods to produce materials of this type by the ton, and is now focusing on optimizing the material's properties. Commercial applications such as self-healing coatings and crack filling are realizable in the near term, they say, whereas additional advances in backbone chemistry and materials science are needed before construction materials and composites can be developed.
The material the researchers used, a gel matrix composed of a polymer made from aminopropyl methacrylamide (APMA) and glucose, an enzyme called glucose oxidase, and the chloroplasts, becomes stronger as it incorporates the carbon. It is not yet strong enough to be used as a building material, though it might function as a crack filling or coating material, the researchers say. The team has worked out methods to produce materials of this type by the ton, and is now focusing on optimizing the material's properties. Commercial applications such as self-healing coatings and crack filling are realizable in the near term, they say, whereas additional advances in backbone chemistry and materials science are needed before construction materials and composites can be developed.
Neo-Vicrtorians rejoice (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
More like sugarcube-age. The process creates glucose from CO2, and polymerize it. Seems to me that such materials, while self-healing, may have a problem with rotting or even dissolving in water.
Re: (Score:2)
or Ants.
Re: (Score:2)
Now that our sexual mores have gone back to Victorian times, I’m hoping that we are now about to see the good side of the Victorian era, which was the ebullient interest in science and technology that powered the first industrial revolution.
Re: (Score:1)
What, like Pony Play, or S&M, or piercing your dick (called a Prince Albert, you know, Victoria's husband), Cocaine, Opium, and the many many things the Victorians did secretly?
What the Victorians did in private, and what they professed in public were often very different things.
Just like today, the louder someone rails against fun sex, the more likely they are to be try
Re: (Score:2)
What, like Pony Play, or S&M, or piercing your dick (called a Prince Albert, you know, Victoria's husband), Cocaine, Opium, and the many many things the Victorians did secretly?
What the Victorians did in private, and what they professed in public were often very different things.
Just like today, the louder someone rails against fun sex, the more likely they are to be trying to get a little action in the stall of an airport bathroom, show up with hookers, or be abusing children.
If people would just get over it and stop the hypocrisy and realize that humans are sexual creatures, the world would be a better place. Instead we have moralizing assholes who profess one thing in public, and do completely different things in private, or trying to make people live to an impossible and ridiculous standard in which sex is evil.
Wish I had mod points today...
Re: (Score:3)
Or possibly the wood age.
Like a 'Tree' and 'Wood'? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Like a 'Tree' and 'Wood'? (Score:5, Informative)
Or like concrete. The concrete itself actually becomes stronger, denser and less permeable with age by absorbing carbon dioxide and converting to limestone.
The main reason why this is considered a bad thing is because modern concrete uses steel rebar reinforcement, and carbonation reduces the concrete's pH. High pH in concrete is required to protect the steel. Once the pH drops enough to prevent the passivation of the rebar, it begins rusting, expands by nearly an order of magnitude, and the concrete spalls out.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I only use solid 24k gold rebar myself.
Re: (Score:2)
This also improves sound quality.
Re: (Score:2)
Epoxy-coated rebar actually doesn't work that well. It's been a big disappointment in the industry.
Now, stainless steel rebar works great. Unfortunately it's also 5 times as expensive as non-stainless rebar.
An interesting alternative is FRP rebar. But its behavior is very different to steel, so it's not a drop-in replacement. The best fibre is carbon fibre, which has incredible durability, but is also very expensive. The best balance between price and durability appears to be basalt fibre. As for resin
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Lime Mortar sets this way (Score:3)
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3
Hydrated Lime + Carbon Dioxide becomes Limestone
Not sure what happens to the H
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
stronger, yes. Worse, questionable. At least water vapor condenses out of the atmosphere sometimes.
Re: (Score:2)
H2 I would assume from what little remains of my knowledge of chemistry.
Re:Lime Mortar sets this way (Score:4, Informative)
CO2 is also a very low energy state (why it's also the end product of combustion of respiration), so converting it into nearly anything else requires putting energy in to drive the reaction up the energy gradient. Plants convert CO2 (and H2O) into glucose by using energy from sunlight (photosynthesis) to drive the reaction. Presumably this material does the same.
Also, the idea isn't completely new. Self-healing fiber reinforced polymers (like fiberglass or carbon fiber) have been made by encapsulating small amounts of the two components of epoxy (resin and hardener) separately inside the FRP. When the FRP develops a crack, some of these capsules are also broken open. The liquid resin and hardener ooze out, mix, and harden into epoxy to seal the crack. The material in TFA is a bit different in that it pulls the required materials out of the air.
Re:Lime Mortar sets this way (Score:5, Interesting)
Cambodia Siam Reap. Temples were glued together with palm sugar and some kind of green moss/fungus reaction.And more palm oil to stop the sugar dissolving by water until it became waterproof enough. Rediscovered.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3
Not sure what happens to the H
The right reaction (which will make it clear what happens to the H) is:
Ca(OH)2 + CO2 --> CaCO3 + H2O
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, that's the reaction for CH. There's also C-S-H, which also forms limestone (mainly CaCO3 in the forms of vaterite and aragonite) plus a silica gel. C-S-H is more abundant in cement than CH but carbonation of CH occurs more quickly.
Quite scary... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It requires no more intelligence than a spring needs to return to its preferred length. One exploits the physical properties of your substance to produce a desired result, and engineers the materials in such a way that its naturally preferred state is whatever that desired result is. This does not require any intelligence whatsoever.
Photsynthetic Goo ? (Score:2)
Really ?? Describing goo as a material that heals itself ?
Re: (Score:1)
I actually thought Mexico was ahead of us also in this category, but not according to this
chloroplasts? (Score:1)
So everything is going green... literally
Would this work in space? The availability of carbon up there is more limited but self healing space craft might be useful.
Re: chloroplasts? (Score:2)
If they can throw in a teleport and Cally, that would be perfect.
Failing that, self-healing hulls would help enormously with riskier missions.
One step closer (Score:2)
DSV-2, aka The Liberator, shall be mine! With Google working on Zen, what can possibly go wrong?
Liberator? Zen? Re:One step closer (Score:1)
Holy Blake's 7 Batman!
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, with Servalan's death, there shall forever be a hole... to match those caused by the deaths of Gan, Blake and Zen/Orac/Slave.
Unfortunately, the discussion for her was voted down as spam. As if the supreme commander was some kind of space command trollop.
I really wish... (Score:2)
... that nature had thought of this. Like, one could have stuff coming out the ground fueled by CO2, and maybe the energy source could be the sun!
Transmogrifying, Revolutional Energy Enties - T.R.E.E.s!
Grey goo (Score:3)
This sounds like the opening chapter for a book predicated on the grey goo scenario.
Sounds great for flat tar/paper roofs (Score:2)
The roof on my house is flat tar/paper and has issues every few years as the tar dries and eventually cracks due to exposure to the environment.
This sounds like a great solution to the tar part of the equation.
The house is from the late 1880s.
the future (Score:2)
Also it might make combustion engines mandatory in the future.
Space (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The atmosphere is too thin to waste it on building materials. We'll need that CO2 to for plants and oxygen.
Shiny (Score:1)