2021 R&D 100 Award for Autonomous self-healing sealant

Prize: Honorary award

Description

A team of ORNL researchers have tackled the problem of brittle, leaky sealants by developing an adhesive material that self-heals autonomously. Sealants have widespread use in many fields such as construction and automotive, but they currently suffer from a propensity to crack and an inability to stick efficiently to dusty surfaces.

ORNL’s team developed the self-healing sealant by integrating a self-healing polymer, poly(BCOE), with existing commercial sealants. The novel material can autonomously self-heal cracks that arise within days at room temperature. It also adheres better to dusty surfaces than current products, eliminating the need to clean an area or apply a primer to the substrate prior to using.

This discovery offers a simple solution that requires no external trigger to begin working. No other self-healing sealants are currently available on the market.

Funding for this project was provided by the DOE’s Building Technologies Office.

ORNL’s Diana Hun, Pengfei Cao and Tomonori Saito led the development team, with Zhen Zhang, Bingrui Li, Natasha Ghezawi and Zoriana Demchuk contributing.

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