Paint That Re-Paints Itself

Very interesting.........................

Paint. Now there's something you don't think about until you absolutely have to. For instance, you don't think about the paint on your car until it gets scratched and you have a choice of either leaving it or paying a body shop five months' rent to fix it. Or we suppose you could buy an armload of spray paint and make your car look like you're about to enter it in a demolition derby.

The fumes will get you even higher than the whiplash.​

But, again, is this not exactly the way we were painting things, oh, a thousand years ago? Slapping on colored mixtures and having to do it all over again if it gets messed up or we get tired of the color? Is there seriously no place to go with this technology?
But what are we asking for here? Paint that can fix its own scratches? Or change its own color?
Yep.
Wait, they can make it do that?
For starters, in the future paint will be able to repair itself. No more having to break out your Gundam model paint kit every time you scratch your bumper. Researchers have developed a type of polyurethane coating that, thanks to a chemical reaction, can sort of melt and fill in scratches when exposed to sunlight. So an angry ex-girlfriend drags her keys across your car door at work; by the time you drive home, it's fine again.
And if you don't like the color, punch a button and watch it change. In the lab, they've developed a coating embedded with iron oxide particles that change how they reflect light when hit with a magnetic field (you need a small electrical current running through it to get the effect, so the paint goes back to the default color when you turn off the engine). Think about it -- a different kick-ass airbrush mural on your custom van every day!

But can they animate it?​

Who has it now?
The military, which obviously can afford to spend millions of your tax dollars on paint jobs, claims it's not far from putting it in the field. They're thinking bigger than turning their Corvette from black to fire engine red, though -- they want a smart system that will automatically change the camouflage to match the vehicle's surroundings and even send a signal to the repair guys to let them know when it's starting to rust.

"Attention! This Humvee is stuck. Please note that water damage voids the warranty."​

As for the rest of us, before bringing it to market they'll have to get around the objections of the all-powerful body shop lobbyists.


Read more: http://www.cracked.com/article_1893...etting-awesome-upgrades_p2.html#ixzz19qU16bRC​