Multifunctional Fluorescent Self-Healing Elastomers Consisting of Polydimethylsiloxane and Carbon Dots Linked via a Schiff Base Reaction

Fluorescent elastomers simultaneously possessing self-healing performance constitute an emerging type of functional polymeric material; however, how to efficiently construct such materials still remains to be explored. In this work, biobased carbon dots containing aldehyde functional groups were prepared by a one-step solvothermal method and then reacted with a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) derivative (NH2–PDMS-NH2) via a Schiff base reaction to construct fluorescent self-healing elastomers. To further improve the property of the resulting fluorescent elastomer, another polymer containing abundant aldehyde moieties (PVMA, derived from vanillin methacrylate) was utilized as a macromolecular cross-linker. A combination of carbon dots, imine bonds (formed between the aldehyde groups both on the surface of carbon dots and on the pendent groups of PVMA and terminal amino groups in PDMS), and nontraditional luminescent moieties enables the resulting elastomers to demonstrate the expected fluorescence, while the self-healing capability is ascribed to the dynamic imine bonds.