Description:
Market Opportunity
Additive manufacturing of self-healing elastomers addresses a major unmet need in soft materials by enabling complex 3D architectures that can recover from damage rather than fail permanently. This capability opens significant opportunities in soft robotics, flexible electronics, structural composites, and biomedical devices, where durability, reliability, and maintenance costs limit widespread adoption. Compatibility with existing photopolymerization-based 3D printing platforms lowers barriers to commercialization and supports rapid integration into current manufacturing workflows. As demand grows for resilient, multifunctional materials, this technology offers a pathway to extend product lifetimes, reduce lifecycle costs, and enable designs not achievable with conventional elastomers.
USC Solution
USC researchers developed a molecularly engineered photoelastomer ink that enables rapid 3D printing of elastomer structures with intrinsic, repeatable self-healing capability. The solution integrates thiol-ene photopolymerization for fast additive manufacturing with dynamic disulfide bonds that autonomously restore mechanical strength after damage, even in complex free-form architectures . This approach overcomes longstanding limitations in shaping self-healing polymers and enables durable, multifunctional components for applications such as soft actuators, structural composites, and flexible electronics.
Value Proposition
- Self-healing durability: Restores mechanical performance after damage, reducing failure and replacement costs.
- 3D design freedom: Enables rapid printing of complex elastomer geometries using existing platforms.
- Cross-market relevance: Applicable to robotics, electronics, composites, and biomedical devices.
Publication
Additive manufacturing of self-healing elastomers
Applications
- Soft robotics and actuators
- Flexible and wearable electronics
- Structural and architected composites
- Sensors and force-sensitive devices
- Biomedical devices and implants