Self-healing rubber glove - The glove of the future

Written by Dr Patrick Tang Siah Ying, School of Engineering

In Malaysia, natural rubber and rubber-based products are the key economic contributor, with export up RM63.2 billion achieved in October 2021. Auto or self-healing rubber development has recently become an important technological area in the rubber industry. The ability to recover from damage is typically a self-healing material. We are developing a novel self-healing rubber glove that possesses multi-cycle self-healing capability in our laboratory for the first time. It is for extended service life and offers needed protection against hazardous chemicals. The self-healing rubber that we are working on incorporates science from self-healing epoxy natural rubber and palm-derived nanocellulose. The random polymer network structure can spontaneously form new bonds when old molecular bonds are broken in a self-healing matrix. It resembles the natural way our flesh heals when wounded.

This inventive idea originates from my research team's interest in tackling the environmental challenges induced by extensive glove use and our efforts to safeguard the wearer's workplace safety. In household routines and health-risk prone industries, protective rubber gloves are generally prone to cuts and tears after repeated use exposing ones to potentially hazardous agents. On the other hand, it contributes to plastic pollution by frequently changing or replacing gloves with improper disposal by waste rubber gloves. Through self-healing technology, we want to extend the working life of rubber gloves and improve their safety and reliability index. During material synthesis, careful tailoring healing mechanisms exploit rubber materials' physiochemical properties for a wide range of green and sustainable rubber products. We envisaged that developing such self-healing rubber gloves for various industrial applications will be a game-changer in glove industries.

The School of Engineering and Advanced Engineering Platform, Monash University Malaysia, provided funding support to our team to kick-start the project. Intensive R&D efforts are underway to achieve a further potential breakthrough in self-healing rubber materials. The product won a Gold medal in Malaysia's 32nd International Invention, Innovation & Technology Exhibition (ITEX 2021). We welcome enquiries from industries or institutes in collaborating with us and welcome students or applicants for PhD study with our Colloid and Polymers group.