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Scientists Develop Magnetic Ink That Can Self-Heal Gadgets When They Break (theverge.com) 52

Scientists from the University of California discuss how they plan on fixing broken devices with magnetic ink particles. "Just like the human skin is stretchable and self-healing, we wanted to impart a self-healing ability to printed electronics," Amay Bandodkar, a member of the research team, tells The New York Times. The Verge reports: Sensors printed with this ink would magnetically attach to each other when a rip or tear occurs, automatically fixing a device at the first sign of disintegration. The published study focused on creating sensors that can be incorporated with fabrics. The result is smart clothing that can repair cuts up to three millimeters long in 50 milliseconds. In a sample video, a sensor used to light a small bulb gets snipped in half. In seconds, magnets in the sensor pull the two sides back together and slowly light the bulb again. To create the self-healing effect, the team used pulverized neodymium magnets typically found in refrigerators and hard drives and combined them into the ink. This helps the researchers avoid the traditional process of adding chemicals and heat, which could take hours to complete. Bandodkar estimates that $10 worth of ink can create "hundreds of small devices" that can help reduce waste, since you won't need to throw these wearables and gadgets out when they're broken. "Within a few seconds it's going to self-heal, and you can use it over and over again."
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Scientists Develop Magnetic Ink That Can Self-Heal Gadgets When They Break

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  • that recovers from "accidents" would be way, way cool.

  • To quote the summary's quote of the supposed actual article:

    Sensors printed with this ink would magnetically attack to each other when a rip or tear occurs, automatically fixing a device at the first sign of disintegration.

    Someone get the the editors (slashdot and linked article) some of that self-healing ink so that I do not have to put up with these typos ("broken words") any more.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Someone get the the editors (slashdot and linked article) some of that self-healing ink so that I do not have to put up with these typos ("broken words") any more.

      Physician, heal thyself.

  • Why do they call it "rare earth" when it comes to these magnets?

    And why are we going to start using the rare earth as a fashion accessory? Is the clothing going to be recycled? Or are we going to lost it to landfills at some point in time?

    • by mark-t ( 151149 ) <{moc.talfdren} {ta} {tkram}> on Friday November 04, 2016 @12:37AM (#53210809) Journal

      They are called rare earth magnets because they utilize one or more rare earth elements to achieve a high powered magnetization that was not possible before the 1980's, when their application for that purpose was discovered.

      The elements are called "rare earth elements" because despite the fact that there is an awful lot of them in the earth's crust (even the rarest of them being far more common then silver, for instance), they are very dispersed throughout the crust, and not typically found in any large concentrations at any one site, which is typically necessary for any economically viable ore deposit.

  • by chiguy ( 522222 ) on Thursday November 03, 2016 @11:31PM (#53210691) Homepage

    What are the consequences of having super-strong magnetic dust all over the place? Can it get into your lungs? Into your eyes? What if a baby swallows some? Would walking next to a steel car cause perforations through the body?

    Not sure I like the idea of more nano particles flying around.

    • by aliquis ( 678370 )

      What are the consequences of having super-strong magnetic dust all over the place? Can it get into your lungs? Into your eyes? What if a baby swallows some? Would walking next to a steel car cause perforations through the body?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] ;)

      I don't know. For the sellers to care they must risk facing the consequences if it's bad.

    • by LegionX ( 691099 )

      Good points.

      Every time I hear "Self Healing" it turns into "Gey Goo" in my mind.

      • Every time I hear "Self Healing" it turns into "Gey Goo" in my mind.

        That's gotta be some bad stuff. Now, "LGBTQ Goo" would at least be inclusive.

  • by Tablizer ( 95088 )

    If HP makes the ink cartridges, they will be more expensive than what they repair.

  • Instead of showing a device self-healing, it shows a device which -- after some coaxing from the tester's fingertips -- moves close enough to maintain a tenuous (but still easily broken) electrical contact, but which is still very obviously damaged even with the naked eye, and which is attached to fabric which there was not even any attempt to repair.

    Without a huge amount more development, this won't result in one single iota less waste because it won't actually *fix* anything, despite the hype to the con
    • by Anonymous Coward

      If you were expecting this to repair the clothing in the video...

      It's a printed circuit, thin and flexible. They are vulnerable to cracking and tearing depending on how exposed they are. This is pointless, because I'm talking to a ten year old aren't I, and you'll get all the mod points for saying it didn't even attempt to repair the fabric. Sigh.

  • Using the word "repair" is bullshit at best. It doesn't fix anything. The connection is still severed, it simply and ever-so-lightly reconnects because of a combination of luck and the weak magnetic attraction present. This is practically a shitty, ill-imagined magsafe connector except much, much weaker and probably dangerous. If one of my power cables gets severed, I want to know about it so I can fix it properly, re-establish integrity to the cable so that a light breeze doesn't have it dropping in and ou
  • by Anonymous Coward

    "Scientists Develop Magnetic Ink That Can Self-Heal Gadgets When They Break"

    No, Slashdot. Scientists discover. Engineers create. The Verge, like the rest of today's media, uses the word "scientist" in the headline to give the impression that something is wonderful, true, and worth reading about. You followed right along. The body of the article even says it was done by an "engineering lab team".

    Let me tell you what wasn't discovered by these "scientists". They didn't discover an ink that has the same electr

"Yes, and I feel bad about rendering their useless carci into dogfood..." -- Badger comics

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