Soft robot actuators heal themselves

Date:
July 27, 2020
Source:
Penn State
Summary:
Repeated activity wears on soft robotic actuators, but these
machine's moving parts need to be reliable and easily fixed. Now
a team of researchers has a biosynthetic polymer, patterned after
squid ring teeth, that is self-healing and biodegradable, creating
a material not only good for actuators, but also for hazmat suits
and other applications where tiny holes could cause a danger.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== Repeated activity wears on soft robotic actuators, but these machine's
moving parts need to be reliable and easily fixed. Now a team of
researchers has a biosynthetic polymer, patterned after squid ring teeth,
that is self-healing and biodegradable, creating a material not only
good for actuators, but also for hazmat suits and other applications
where tiny holes could cause a danger.


========================================================================== "Current self-healing materials have shortcomings that limit their
practical application, such as low healing strength and long healing times (hours)," the researcher report in today's issue of Nature Materials.

The researchers produced high-strength synthetic proteins that mimic
those found in nature. Like the creatures they are patterned on, the
proteins can self-heal both minute and visible damage.

"Our goal is to create self-healing programmable materials with
unprecedented control over their physical properties using synthetic
biology," said Melik Demirel, professor of engineering science and
mechanics and holder of the Lloyd and Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair in
Biomimetic Materials.

Robotic machines from industrial robotic arms and prosthetic legs have
joints that move and require a soft material that will accommodate this movement. So do ventilators and personal protective equipment of various
kinds. But, all materials under continual repetitive motion develop tiny
tears and cracks and eventually break. Using a self-healing material, the initial tiny defects are repairable before catastrophic failure ensues.

Demirel's team creates the self-healing polymer by using a series of DNA
tandem repeats made up of amino acids produced by gene duplication. Tandem repeats are usually short series of molecules arranged to repeat
themselves any number of times. The researchers manufacture the polymer
in standard bacterial bioreactors.



==========================================================================
"We were able to reduce a typical 24-hour healing period to one second
so our protein-based soft robots can now repair themselves immediately,"
said Abdon Pena-Francelsch, lead author of the paper and a former doctoral student in Demirel's lab. "In nature, self-healing takes a long time. In
this sense, our technology outsmarts nature." The self-healing polymer
heals with the application of water and heat, although Demirel said that
it could also heal using light.

"If you cut this polymer in half, when it heals it gains back 100 percent
of its strength," said Demirel.

Metin Sitti, director, Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Stuttgart, Germany, and his team,
were working with the polymer, creating holes and healing them. They
then created soft actuators that, through use, cracked and then healed
in real time -- about one second.

"Self-repairing physically intelligent soft materials are essential for building robust and fault-tolerant soft robots and actuators in the near future," said Sitti.



==========================================================================
By adjusting the number of tandem repeats, Demirel's team created a
soft polymer that healed rapidly and retained its original strength,
but they also created a polymer that is 100% biodegradable and 100%
recyclable into the same, original polymer.

"We want to minimize the use of petroleum-based polymers for many
reasons," said Demirel. "Sooner or later we will run out of petroleum and
it is also polluting and causing global warming. We can't compete with
the really inexpensive plastics. The only way to compete is to supply
something the petroleum based polymers can't deliver and self-healing
provides the performance needed." Demirel explained that while many petroleum-based polymers can be recycled, they are recycled into something different. For example, polyester t-shirts can be recycled into bottles,
but not into polyester fibers again.

Just as the squid the polymer mimics biodegrades in the ocean, the
biomimetic polymer will biodegrade. With the addition of an acid like
vinegar, the polymer will also recycle into a powder that is again manufacturable into the same, soft, self-healing polymer.

"This research illuminates the landscape of material properties that
become accessible by going beyond proteins that exist in nature using
synthetic biology approaches," said Stephanie McElhinny, biochemistry
program manager, Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "The rapid
and high-strength self-healing of these synthetic proteins demonstrates
the potential of this approach to deliver novel materials for future
Army applications, such as personal protective equipment or flexible
robots that could maneuver in confined spaces."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by Penn_State. Note: Content may be
edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Abdon Pena-Francesch, Huihun Jung, Melik C. Demirel, Metin Sitti.

Biosynthetic self-healing materials for soft machines. Nature
Materials, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41563-020-0736-2 ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200727114650.htm

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