A novel, high strength, ultra-fast room temperature self-healing elastomers via structural functional region optimization strategy

The development of self-healing material enabled people to obtain more reliable and intelligent chemical products. However, how to solve the contradiction between mechanical strength and self-healing efficiency has become the most urgent scientific problem. Here, we obtained a room temperature self-healing elastomer with high strength mechanical properties by one-step copolymerization of polyether amines with different molecular weight. The two functional regions, low density and high density hydrogen bond functional regions, were formed in polymer networks due to the different chemical length. The low density hydrogen bond functional regions chain segment with high efficiency of motion could promote the self-healing properties of the polymer. The high density hydrogen bond functional regions had a high molecular energy barrier, which would improve the rigidity of polymer network and enhance the mechanical properties of materials. The elastomers obtained not only possessed ability to fully self-healing within 6 h at room temperature, but also had a maximum tensile strength of 17.8 MPa and a fracture energy up to 105.7 KJ/m2. The amazing comprehensive properties was far ahead to room temperature self-healing material previously reported. In addition, we verified its great application prospects in the field of conductive polymer composites. Our work provided a new insight into the construction of room temperature self-healing materials with faster self-healing speed and higher mechanical strength.