Self-Healing Elastomers
Introducing self-healing concepts from living matter to synthetic elastomers is highly beneficial to prolongate the service time of rubber-based components or to arrive at new advanced materials. Hydrogen bonding interactions are well suited for the design of self-healing, adaptive and/or responsive materials. We discovered in the last years that the combination of bio-inspired thymine (thy) and diamino-triazine (DAT) -bases as active H-bonding entities in a dry polymer matrix exhibit convenient time scales for the life time of these dynamic bonds. Following studies of the association in the melt we aim at complementing a sacrificial non-covalent network into a permanently cross-linked rubber to arrive at interpenetrating double networks with advanced, responsive and tunable properties like tolerance against damage or vibration absorbers.
References:
- M. Staropoli, A. Raba, C. H. Hoevelmann, M. Krutyeva, J. Allgaier, M.S. Appavou, U. Keiderling, F. J. Stadler, W. Pyckhout-Hintzen, A. Wischnewski and D. Richter
Hydrogen Bonding in a Reversible Comb Polymer Architecture: A Microscopic and Macroscopic Investigation
Macromolecules, 49, 5692-5703(2016)
- M. Staropoli, A. Raba, C. H. Hövelmann, M.S. Appavou, J. Allgaier, M. Krutyeva, W. Pyckhout-Hintzen, A. Wischnewski and D. Richter,
Melt dynamics of supramolecular comb polymers: Viscoelastic and dielectric response
J. Rheol, 6,1185-1196(2017)
- B.J. Gold, C.H. Hoevelmann, C. Weiss, A. Radulescu, J.Allgaier, W. Pyckhout-Hintzen, A. Wischnewski,
D. RichterSacrificial bonds enhance toughness of dual polybutadiene networks
Polymer,87,123-128(2016)