Magnetic self-healing nanocomposite material introduced by thiol-epoxy click reaction

Abstract

Magnetic nanocomposite material has undergone significant development in the past few years. However, it is inevitable to initiate mechanical damage during service. Herein, we developed a self-healing magnetic nanocomposite material composed of Fe3O4 nanoparticle and disulfide-based epoxy resin with N,N-dimethylbenzylamine (BDMA) as catalyst. Owing to the catalytic effect of BDMA, the polymer network of the material is successfully formed via thiol-epoxy click reaction of pentaerythritol glycidyl ether (PTEGE) and polydisulfide dithiol (PSDT). More strikingly, BDMA could also catalyze the metathesis reaction of aliphatic disulfide bond and the magnetic nanocomposite material shows more than 60% self-healing efficiency at room temperature for 24 h. The self-healing performance of the magnetic nanocomposite material is investigated and the possible mechanism of disulfide metathesis catalyzed by BDMA is proposed. Besides, with the incorporation of 3 wt% Fe3O4 nanoparticle, the mechanical strength and saturation magnetic induction of the magnetic nanocomposite material are up to 0.31 MPa and 0.51 emu/g, respectively. These results demonstrate that the as-prepared magnetic nanocomposite material has excellent comprehensive performance and can be used for the next generation magnetic material.