A new material is among the first to offer self-healing as well as transparency, ionic conductivity, and stretchability properties.

Dubbed Wolverine after the comic book character that has the ability to self-heal, the material may be used to power artificial muscles and could be used to improve batteries, electronic devices, and robots. It was developed in part by researchers working at the University of California-Riverside.

Self-healing materials can repair damage caused by the wear and tear of regular use. A device made of self-healing material could last longer and cost less to operate and maintain than a conventional counterpart.

Constructing Wolverine required solving the problem of locating stable and reversible electrochemical bonds. Conventional self-healing materials have non-covalent bonds that degrade over time. The researcher's solution uses a mechanism called ion-dipole interactions, which are forces between charged ions and polar molecules that are highly stabile under electrochemical conditions. By combining a polar, stretchable polymer with a mobile, high-ionic-strength salt, a material was produced with the desired characteristics.

A collaborator from the University of Colorado demonstrated Wolverine’s suitability as an artificial muscle. The apporoach sandwiched a piece of nonconductive rubberlike membrane between two sheets of Wolverine and activated the “muscle” electrically. The muscle worked as expected, before and after researchers cut the sheet and allowed it to heal.

Wolverine is said to be easy and inexpensive to produce. It also reportedly can stretch 50 times its length and can heal itself in 24 hours.