A Transparent Self-Healing Polyurethane–Isophorone-Diisocyanate Elastomer Based on Hydrogen-Bonding Interactions

Abstract

Self-healing elastomers that can repair physical damage and extend their service life in medium-and low-temperature environments have attracted considerable attention in the field of flexible materials. However, the self-healing polyurethane (PU) healing process reported in previous studies regularly needs to be supported by high heating temperature and long healing time. In this study, a simple method was developed to synthesize a self-healing PU film using isophorone diisocyanate (IPDI) and a transparent rubber solution. The high transmittance (89%) of the resulting polyurethane−isophorone-diisocyanate (PUI) film was confirmed by UV−vis spectroscopy. FT-IR spectroscopy revealed that the hydrogen bonds formed by the imino group and the C O bonds in IPDI and the transparent rubber facilitated the self-healing of the PUI composite film. The optical microscope observed that the self-healing PU can complete the self-healing of cracks in a short period. Moreover, a PUI film restored at 60 °C for 1 h withstood a load of 1 kg. Tensile tests showed that healing efficiencies of 82% and 99% were achieved by the PUI film healed at 60 °C for 1 and 2 h, respectively. A self-healing experiment conducted on a silver-nanowire/PUI-film system confirmed the synergistic recovery performance of PUI on a conductive coating. The self-healing PUI elastomers might have potential commercial prospects in transparent coatings, self-healing antibacterial films, robotic skins, and flexible electronics.

Asymmetric Hard Domain-Induced Robust Resilient Biocompatible Self-Healable Waterborne Polyurethane for Biomedical Applications

“…26 Recently, a transparent self-healable PU−IPDI elastomer has been synthesized by Ma and co-workers in which the hydrogen bonding interaction is developed between the imino and C�O groups. 27 However, all these reports used petroleum-based raw materials. On the other hand, in the past two decades or so, remarkable efforts have been dedicated to explore the potential for renewable raw materials as alternatives to fossil feedstock because of environmental concerns.…”

Self-Healing, Robust, Liquid-Repellent Coatings Exploiting the Donor–Acceptor Self-Assembly

“…(d) Comparison of the self-healing properties of DA-PU with different repair mechanisms. (Previous work on D–A self-assembly, Diels–Alder chemistry, , disulphide linkage, − phenolic urethane chemistry, microcapsule, segmented PU, and multiple hydrogen bonding. − Details are presented in Table S1 in the Supporting Information).…”

Recent Advances in Functional Polyurethane Chemistry: From Structural Design to Applications

“…These hydrogen bonds can also break and recombine at low temperatures, even room temperatures, thus giving polyurethane selfhealing ability. [12,49] However, it is difficult to achieve complete polyurethane repair only by the inherent hydrogen bond in the main polyurethane chain, and the mechanical strength after the repair is low. The commonly used method is to introduce hydrogen-rich bond groups into the side chain or main chain of polyurethane and improve the hydrogen bond density to make polyurethane exhibit excellent self-healing and mechanical properties.…”