New automotive paint makes scratches disappear in sunlight; to understand

One of the biggest pains for car owners, especially when new, the days of inevitable scratches may be numbered: a new automotive paint developed by scientists at the Chemical Technology Research Institute (KRICT) in South Korea promises. “Heal” all scratches on your car in 30 minutes using only sunlight.

Magic” allows a coating to self-heal It is a network of acrylic polyol-based polymers to which dynamic chemical bonds called hindered urea structure are attached. This organic component has the ability to repeat the decomposition and reassemble the entire polymer structure.

In this case, it is the heat provided by the organic photothermal dye (sensitized by sunlight) that causes the dynamic chemical bonds of the polymer to break. capture infrared light embedded in the coating. In practice, you scratch the car, park it, go to lunch, and the scratch disappears on the way back.

What are the benefits of the new coating?

CRIT

While self-healing coatings aren’t exactly new, KRICT researchers assure that their product stands out for being based on organic materials. This means that It needs much less energy to run.Besides being able to repair a scratch in the same place over and over, this is unheard of among materials.

Another important difference is new product transparentthat is, it does not interfere with the original color of the vehicle, it can even be applied with existing spraying methods. While the focus of the coating is scratches on cars, it can often be used on phones or building materials.

The process was demonstrated on a toy car, where the light was magnified using a magnifying glass. Check it out in the video below.

ARTICLE – ACS Applied Polymer Materials – DOI: 10.1021/acsapm.1c01768.