Chitosan strengthened and multiple hydrogen bonds crosslinked styrene-acrylate coatings as conductive substrate with excellent mechanical performance

Abstract

In this work, styrene-acrylate (SA) coatings were strengthened with renewable natural polymers (carboxymethyl chitosan, CMCS) and crosslinked by multiple hydrogen bonds, which improved the mechanical performance and endowed the self-healing properties. SA latex was synthesized by styrene (St), butyl acrylate (BA), glycidyl methacrylate (GMA) and acrylamide (AM) with semi continuous seed emulsion polymerization. SA coatings were obtained after drying the mixture of SA latex and CMCS. The rigid skeleton of CMCS and hydrogen bonds cross-linked network improved the mechanical properties of SA coatings. The stress and strain improved from 12.3 to 17.9 MPa and 1765% to 2148%. The reversible hydrogen bonding interactions between SA and CMCS made the films had a self-healing efficiency of 68.7%. Moreover, the hardness of SA coatings reached 80.6. Combined with the spraying technique, SA conductive coatings were prepared by spraying carbon nanotubes aqueous dispersions (CNTs) on the surface. The conductivity and sensing ability of the SA conductive coatings were examined by an electrochemical workstation. The results demonstrated that SA conductive coatings had the signal sensing ability for tiny movements, which was of potential applications in the field of sensors.