UV Curable Self-Healing Structural Epoxy Composite Materials Interfacial Polycondensation Microencapsulation of Healing Agent and Photo-Initiator

Abstract

The ability of polymeric coatings to self-heal itself from mechanical damage is explored in this paper. Polymeric coatings with self-healing property is one of the important aspects in modern science. It can be used in industries such as oil industry (protection against corrosion), mechanical engineering, aircraft, etc. The polyurethane (PU) microparticles were synthesized on the basis of polypropyleneglycol (PPG) and toluene diisocyanate (TDI) with a method of interfacial polycondensation at the interface water-benzene. Further to study the surface morphology of the microcapsules with healing agent (trimethylolpropanetriacrylate-TMPTA) obtained PU was applied the method of scanning electron and atomic force microscopy. The PU microparticles hollow inside have regular spherical shape with a diameter of 5-10 µm with a dense and smooth polymerics shell. The resulting polyimide-polyurethane (PI-PU) composites have high potential to regenerate damaged surfaces not only on the surface and also in the volume of composite within several minutes.