Artificial Skin Mimics the Real Thing

Feb. 12, 2008 -- A new kind of artificial skin made from thin layers of polymers and carbon nanotubes could soon give patients and robots alike the sensation of hot, cold, and pressure.

With robotic and computer technologies advancing, artificial hands have become increasingly lifelike in motion and flexibility. But artificial skin is still, for the most post, an unfeeling plastic coating.

"By employing carbon nanotube technology, we can not only come very close to existing skin characteristics, we may even exceed them," said John Simpson, a senior research scientist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Nanomaterials Synthesis and Properties Group.

Simpson and colleague Ilia Ivanov, a research staff member at ORNL, are collaborating on the so-called FILMskin project (it stands for Flexible, Integrated, Lightweight, Multifunctional skin) with researchers from the National Institute of Aerospace in NASA's Langley Research Center.

The researchers are using nanotubes because materials made from them can have a range of useful properties.

For example, the material can be designed to behave as both a temperature and pressure sensor, as a flexible electrical conductor, or as part of a polymer material with mechanical and thermal properties similar to those of human skin.

Furthermore, said Ivanov, "the carbon in nanotubes is biocompatible, meaning the body's immune system does not recognize it as a foreign object. In the future this will help to create sensors wired to a person's nervous system allowing information to flow back and forth to the brain."