Self-repair Hydrogel

For years, people have been trying to create and/or find a substance with the ability to heal itself. And thus, the self-reparing hydrogel was created. 

A hydrogel is a semi-solid squishy substance. It can be applied in the medical world, as in tissue engineering. 

The main point in a self-healing hydrogel was finding a way to have the polymer chains that have been severed to find and relatch onto each other. They then, created a way to do this, naming the method the "dangling side chain" molecules. The molecules hang on from the main chain, and they give the chain that has been hurt, something to latch on to. 

This can be useful for working with things with acid. You can suture a perforated stomach or create a layer inside a container to hold acidic materials. Bioegineers now try to create different type of hydrogels to use in different situations. The self-healing hydrogel may be able to lead to self-reparing plastics and other different materials.

So to the future!!!

http://youtu.be/wZhwGfOnydY  < link to a video on self healing hydrogels

   Knoff, Joshua. "Smart, Self-Healing Hydrogels Repair Themselves After Sustaining Damage." Popsci.com. N.p., 5 Mar. 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. <http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-03/smart-self-healing-hydrogels-repair-themselves-after-sustaining-damage>.