Who among us hasn't found scratches on their car? What a pain! In the future, our anger could become a distant memory: a team of Korean scientists created a paint that repairs scratches in just 30 minutes of exposure to sunlight.
The new polymer coating is based on an acrylic polyol: it has dynamic chemical bonds that can break in response to a stimulus and then reform into their original pattern, effectively repairing minor damage such as scratches. In this case the trigger is heat, provided by an organic and photothermal dye that captures infrared light.
The test results
In tests on a real car (you can find them here), the team showed that the coating repairs scratches with just 30 minutes of sunlight. In theory, if you park your car for an hour of shopping and someone scratches it, you may not even notice it when you return.
If half an hour still seems like too much, consider that the process can be speeded up by focusing sunlight directly on the scratches with a magnifying glass: how about 30 seconds (even a little less)? Something that borders on magic.
The scratches are running out of time
This new coating has some really interesting advantages even compared to more advanced coatings. The use of organic photothermal dyes makes it much more effective and very rapid: that's not all, its particular composition allows it to repair even many scratches in the same position.
If it already looks fantastic, I'll tell you another one: the coating is transparent. Yes, that's right, you don't need to create various types to match the color of a car, and it can be applied with normal spray methods. In the future I see such a thing applied not only to cars: it could repair scratches on a cell phone, or on a building coating. Maybe.
When it's sunny, optimism reigns.
