Watch the demo: Features of heat-healable VPR

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University of Tokyo developed an innovative plastic VPR by adding the molecule polyrotaxane to an epoxy resin vitrimer. The new material is stronger and stretchier, can be healed with heat, remembers its shape and partially biodegradable.

Professor Shota Ando, Project Assistant from the Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, stated that VPR repairs itself 15 times as fast and recovers it is original memorized shape twice as fast.

VPR is also able to be healed with heat. At temperatures above 150°C, the material’s strong internal chemical bonds recombine and the material can be reformed into different shapes.

Details: Stronger, heat-healable and biodegradable plastic developed