Scratching the Surface of Self-Healing Paint

Last week I touched a little bit on the awesome that is self-healing paint in my Mobile Tech article. This week I thought I’d expound on the point a little bit more.

Self-healing paint has to be one of the greatest boons in aesthetic car tech ever. I was geeked when I first heard about color-changing chameleon paint and enraptured with high gloss candy and iridescent pearl paints. Self-healing is different.  It has a practical function besides making salivary glands go into overload. While the name pretty much says it all, how does this paint do the voodoo that it does so well?

If you”re using Nissan’s version of this technical marvel, the paint has high elastin resins that prevent scratches from wrecking the inner layers of paint. Depending on the amount of time and the weather, a car coated with Nissan’s patented “Scratch Guard” will repair itself in a week depending on the severity of the scratch. The clear top coat which was created in 2005, lasts for approximately three years.  You might be asking yourself why we’re talking about something that happened four years ago. The answer is simple. This technology might be keeping your cell phones scratch-free in the near future. Nissan has recently licensed their self-repairing paint to Japanese mobile phone company NTT DoCoMo. It’s only a value add now, but it won’t be long before it becomes standard and eventually makes its way stateside.

So onto new developments in the paint that heals its own boo-boos. According to FastCompany.com, there’s an company that’s making true self-healing paint. Illinois-based Autonomic Materials is taking a page out Emeril Legasse’s book and kicking it up a notch. Their version of self-healing paint follows nature’s design with an automatic response to damage. Using a microcapsule delivery system, the self-healing agent can be added to just about any paint or coating material. When the capsules are ruptured as a result of damage, the self-healing chemicals are released and a polymerization reaction occurs causing the damaged area to heal. In lay men’s terms, if some jerk keys your car, you won’t have to wait a week for your car to recover. The healing begins immediately regardless of the weather which is pretty sweet if you ask me.

If you’re like me and have serious car lust going on, you know that after the engine, top speed, and acceleration, looks matter (Well, it doesn’t have to be in that order exactly). It’s bad enough you have to guard your four wheeled baby from birds that seem intent on leaving their mark all over your newly washed and waxed vehicle, but trying to protect your car from the scrapes and bruises of everyday use is almost impossible. Autonomic’s self-healing paint would be a boon to car owners everywhere because car manufacturers can just add it to their paint. The wonder paint is still in development, but the company is in talks with several interested parties. Hopefully the next generation of cars and cell phones will remain scratch-free and pretty as the day you took it home.