No matter how strong and durable a material it is in any case subject to wear. And it would be great to create a substance that could rearrange its internal structure and change it in the manner of “smart” materials from a science fiction movie. And, it seems that something like this managed to create a group of scientists from the American National laboratory oak ridge.
On the development of very interesting material, writes the edition of Nature Communications, and is responsible for the invention of a team led by Raymond Unoticed. The material is created based on conductive MXene ceramics, which is a layer of atoms of carbon and nitrogen between layers of aluminum and titanium dicarbide. This material when heated begins to rebuild itself, launching a special mechanism of transfer of atoms from existing layers to form one new one.
MXene when placed on a flat heating element and the gradual increase in temperature, the activation processes of transition and displacement of atoms of titanium and carbon for the substitution resulting of atomic vacancies. Thus is formed a new layer of titanium carbide. Due to the fact that changes in the structure of used atoms the original elements, such a mechanism scientists call “cannibalistic”.
The elements inside MXene can be very versatile: can be used for the recognition of the authors molybdenum, vanadium chromium, hafnium, silicon and other elements in various combinations with each other. “Cannibalistic” mechanism of rearrangement of the material will be stored there. This diversity of the available materials will allow for the use of MXene materials when creating electronics, mechanical devices and even in the development of batteries and massive camperstraat designs.
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Created a material that can rebuild itself
Vladimir Kuznetsov