Self-healing ability and application of impact hardening polymers

Abstract

To realize intelligent and low-cost protective materials, the development of compounds with smart stress-responsive properties and self-healing abilities over a wide temperature range is a major research goal. In this study, a series of impact hardening polymers (IHPs) with stress-responsive properties and self-healing ability in low temperature were synthesized via the condensation copolymerization of silicone polymers with various chain lengths and boron contents. The results of rheological analysis indicate that the IHPs have self-healing ability at low temperatures (healing times of less than 30 h and healing efficiencies better than 80% at −25 °C). Moreover, the relative shear stiffening effect (RSTe), which describes the stress-responsive ability of the IHP, exceeded 2000. In addition, the self-healing mechanism of IHP was investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy microscopy and pulsed 1H-NMR measurements. The results suggested that reversible dynamic cross-linking arising from the boron compound and the reduction in the threshold entanglement density owing to the longer length of the flexible polymeric backbone is crucial to impart low-temperature self-healing ability and stress-responsive properties to IHP.