Dual rapid self-healing and easily recyclable carbon fiber reinforced vitrimer composites

Abstract

Traditional carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites (CFRECs) pose significant challenges to sustainable development due to their non-self-healable and non-recyclable nature, which causes environmental pollutions. To address these challenges, our research focuses on the design of carbon fiber reinforced vitrimer (CF/vitrimer) composites system with dual self-healing properties (self-healing resin and self-healing interface) and dual recyclable capabilities (recycling vitrimer resin and recycling CF). On the one hand, the scratch on the vitrimer resin exhibited rapid self-healing properties (achieving ˃ 95 % recovery within 5 min). Additionally, the self-healing interface was constructed between the functionalized CF and the vitrimer resin, and even after undergoing five self-healing cycles, the self-healing interface maintained a self-healing efficiency of 77.4 %. On the other hand, the CF/vitrimer composites could be easily and effectively degraded in ethylene glycol, resulting in recycled vitrimer resin and recycled CF. These results not only indicate the potential for developing other types of self-healing CF/vitrimer composites but also highlight their contributions to sustainable development.