Synthesis and Properties of Self-healing Metallopolymers with 5-Vinyltetrazole Units and Zn(II)

Abstract

The development of reversible and efficient self-healing materials symbolizes an emerging and challenging task in intelligent materials science. In this paper, a facile one-pot and two-step methodology was developed for the preparation of polyacrylonitrile-r-poly(butyl acrylate) (PAN-r-PnBA) and its subsequent modification. Zinc chloride (ZnCl2) was used as a catalyst to modify cyano groups and generate tetrazole groups of PAN-r-PnBA. Simultaneously, ZnCl2 effectively coordinates with the generated tetrazole group for highly self-healing performance. It was demonstrated that the metallopolymers (MPs) exhibited excellent self-healing properties at ambient temperature. The prepared tetrazole-based MPs can be used as a wide range of self-healing materials.