Skin-mimic material is as tough as teeth

A bio-inspired material that combines a soft, self-healing polymer with a tough layer of graphene oxide could one day form the basis of new, ultra-tough scratch resistant coatings. The researchers who developed the material say it combines the best properties of skin – which can heal itself from the inside out – with tooth enamel, which is hard but cannot self-repair. ‘For a material to self-heal, it generally needs to be a highly dynamic polymer network,’ says Ming Yang from Harbin Institute of Technology in China. ‘Unfortunately, this also means self-healing coatings are typically made of soft materials.’