Self-Healing Electronic Material and Other Future Tech

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Self-Healing Electronic Material

Damage to electronics causes heavy losses for consumers each year, resulting in brands adopting waterproof or bend-proof technologies in their products. But what if there was a type of electronic material that could heal on its own? Researchers from the Penn State and Harbin Institute of Technology have made a material that is self-healing and dielectric by adding boron nitride nanosheets to a base material of plastic polymer.

"Wearable and bendable electronics are subject to mechanical deformation over time, which could destroy or break them. We wanted to find an electronic material that would repair itself to restore all of its functionality, and do so after multiple breaks. This is the first time that a self-healable material has been created that can restore multiple properties over multiple breaks, and we see this being useful across many applications," said Qing Wang, Material Science and Engineering Professor at the university.

The material retains critical properties such as “mechanical strength, breakdown strength to protect against surges, electrical resistivity, thermal conductivity and dielectric, or insulating properties.”

Bacteria that Breathes CO2 and Produces Energy

A Harvard professor Daniel Nocera used genetic engineering to produce bacteria that absorb hydrogen and carbon dioxide and produce alcohol fuel as output. Called ralston eutropha, the bacteria converts hydrogen and carbon dioxide into adenosine triphosphate (ATP) by adding genes that allows ATP to convert into alcohol fuel.

“Right now we’re making isopropanol, isobutanol [and] isopentanol. These are all alcohols you can burn directly. And it’s coming from hydrogen from split water, and it’s breathing in CO2. That’s what this bug’s doing,” said Nocera. Tests showed the bacteria proved to be 10 times more efficient than plants.

3D Printed Wonder Pill can Cure All Your Ailments

Researchers have come up with a way to use 3D printed tablet fabrication technology to make fully-customized pills with different release profiles, allowing the drugs inside to be released at varying rates throughout the day.

“For a long time, personalized tablets has been a mere concept as it was far too complex or expensive to be realized. This new tablet fabrication method is a game changer - it is technically simple, relatively inexpensive and versatile. It can be applied at individualized settings where physicians could produce customized pills on the spot for patients, or in mass production settings by pharmaceutical companies,” said Soh Siow Ling, Assistant Professor at the NUS Faculty of Engineering.

Researchers, like those from the NUS Faculty of Engineering, are pioneers of a movement to develop secure software applications for the healthcare industry. Q3 Technologies is a large diversified technology company offering technology consulting and outsourced software product development services to the global IT industry.