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."

The team is currently working on a patch of FILMskin with a surface that resists water and the ability to sense changes in temperature and pressure.

The water-resistant top layer will be made from a specially designed nano-structured material. It starts with tiny particles of sand, each one textured to amplify the effect of surface tension, naturally repelling water.

Such particles could be sprinkled like powder onto polymers and then bonded to the surface with heat, for example. The coating would keep water or sweat out of seams and joints, where moisture could compromise electronics.

The team is also looking at how they can use carbon nanotubes to harvest solar energy or body heat to power the sensors.

"Expect more interesting news soon," said Ivanov.

Source: Discovery News