Abstract
Multifunctional materials inspired by biological structures have attracted great interest, e.g. for wearable/ flexible “skin” and smart coatings. A current challenge in this area is to develop an artificial material which mimics biological skin by simultaneously displaying color change on damage as well as self healing of the damaged region. Here we report, for the first time, the development of a damage sensing and self healing magnet-polymer composite (Magpol), which actively responds to an external magnetic field. We incorporated reversible sensing using mechanochromic molecules in a shape memory thermoplastic matrix. Exposure to an alternating magnetic field (AMF) triggers shape recovery and facilitates damage repair. Magpol exhibited a linear strain response upto 150% strain and complete recovery after healing. We have demonstrated the use of this concept in a reusable biomedical device i.e., coated guidewires. Our findings offer a new synergistic method to bestow multifunctionality for applications ranging from medical device coatings to adaptive wing structures.
Highlights
Multifunctional materials have attracted intense interest for the development of generation technologies[1,2]
Magnetic nanoparticles with the composition Mn0.8Zn0.2Fe2O4 were synthesized with an average size of 12 nm, as determined from X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) micrographs
We have developed a novel multicycle damage sensing and remotely triggered healing magnet-polymer composite material (Magpol)
Summary
Multifunctional materials have attracted intense interest for the development of generation technologies[1,2]. For biomedical catheter and guide wire coatings the U.S Environmental Protection Agency requires that manufacturers eliminate the suspected carcinogen perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) from their PTFE formulations by 2015 This is a challenge due to flaking and delamination of PTFE coatings, which has resulted in FDA recalls of several types of guidewires produced by various companies[13]. Materials exhibiting damage sensing and self healing, referred to as “electronic skins”, are often based on conductive materials, which can sense strain and/or damage[14,15,16] Such materials cannot be applied to large structures due to the disadvantage that they have to be permanently connected to a power source. Bleeding of fluorescent markers due to damage and self healing via infiltration of the damaged region by a healing agent supplied through hollow fibers has been demonstrated[18]
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