Self-Healing of Structural Damage to Restore Performance of Electrical Circuits

Scientific Achievement

Designed chemical interactions of liquid-metal-filled microcapsules target areas of microstructural damage and restore conductive pathways.

Significance and Impact

Selective self-healing mechanism extends the lifetime and reliability of electronic devices including battery electrodes.

Research Details
  • Liquid Indium-Gallium metal-filled microcapsules restore nearly 99% of the initial conductivity to more than 90% of damaged electrical circuits
  • Conductivity is restored within 160 microseconds, about 7 orders of magnitude faster than previous self-healing microcapsule methods
  • Works with as little as 0.007 volume fraction of microcapsules
Restore Conductivity


Schematic of self-healing mechanism: Liquid Indium-Gallium metal stored in microcapsules flows to the damaged site and restores a conductive pathway.

Reference: Benjamin J. Blaiszik, Sharlotte L. B. Kramer, Martha E. Grady, David A. McIlroy, Jeffrey S. Moore, Nancy R. Sottos, and Scott R. White, Autonomic Restoration of Electrical Conductivity, Advanced Materials 24, 398-401 (2011). [DOI: 10.1002/adma.201102888].

Support: Work was performed at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign and supported by the Center for Electrical Energy Storage (CEES),an EFRC led by Michael Thackeray at Argonne National Laboratory.