Autonomous self-healing and superior tough polyurethane elastomers enabled by strong and highly dynamic hard domains
Hao Jiang, Yan Tong, Meng Cheng, Zhihao Zhao, Tinglei He, Zhikun Wang, Chunling Li, Shuangqing Sun, Songqing Hu
Abstract
), surpassing those of most room temperature self-healing materials. After being damaged, the dynamic change process of hydrogen bonds and π-π interactions enables the elastomer to show a high self-healing efficiency of 92.15% at room temperature. Using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations and experiments, we verified that hydrogen bonds and π-π interactions promote the formation of hard domains and the autonomous self-healing of elastomers. The prepared elastomers can also be recycled and they showed ultra-high and restorable adhesion between metals. This work demonstrates a new strategy to balance the mechanical and self-healing properties of elastomers to expand their practical applications such as metal adhesives.