Self-healing of biobased furan polymers: Recovery of high mechanical strength by mild heating

Abstract

Bio-based self-healing polymers exhibiting recovery of high mechanical strength by mild heating are developed. A series of bio-based network polymers was prepared from furan copolymers, poly(2,5-furandimethylene succinate-co-propylene succinate)s, through the reversible Diels-Alder reaction with bismaleimide. By changing the comonomer composition of the copolymer and the amount of bismaleimide added to the copolymer, the network polymers with various glass transition temperature, Tg, covering from −19 to 37 °C were obtained. Healing test of these network polymers at r.t. and 50 °C revealed a clear relationship between healing ability and Tg: healing required a healing temperature Th > Tg+15 °C. Furthermore, the network polymers with r.t < Tg < 50 °C expressed recovery of quite high tensile strength of 11–18 MPa at 50 °C. This result indicates that setting Tg slightly above r.t. and Th above Tg+15 °C shoud be a good strategy to obtain a good balance between mild healing conditions and recovery of high mechanical strength.