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Inspired by how skin and bone repair themselves, engineers have designed plastics and even concrete that can mend their own cracks.
Self-healing materials can automatically repair their own damage, closing small cracks before they spread into larger structural failures. Many designs embed microscopic capsules of glue-like resin or, in concrete, dormant bacteria that activate when water enters a crack and produce limestone to fill the gap, mimicking how living tissue like skin and bone mends itself after injury.
Generating electricity from sunlight describes solar panels, an entirely different technology built around converting light into electrical current rather than repairing structural damage. Becoming lighter with age is not a property engineers pursue in these materials at all, since durability rather than weight loss is the goal.
The appeal of self-healing infrastructure is enormous: roads, bridges, and buildings that quietly mend their own hairline cracks could dramatically cut the enormous cost and disruption of routine maintenance and repair work worldwide.
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