Thermal-Driven Self-Healing and Recyclable Waterborne Polyurethane Films Based on Reversible Covalent Interaction

By Yuanlai Fang, Xiaosheng Du, Yuxu Jiang, Zong-liang Du, Peiting Pan, Xu Cheng, Haibo Wang. ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, 2018

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By introducing novel stimuli-responsive Diels–Alder (DA) diol into polymer chains, a series of environmentally friendly, self-healing, and recyclable waterborne polyurethanes based on DA/retro-DA reactions (WPU-DA-x) were successfully prepared through a modified acetone process. The properties and appearance of the resultant WPU-DA-x latex were analyzed by considering particle size and zeta potential which show these dispersions with an outstanding storage stability. Simultaneously, the molecular mechanism of the self-healing behavior was extensively investigated via 1H NMR, FT-IR, and UV–vis spectroscopies exhibiting effective reversibility of the DA/retro-DA chemistry. Moreover, WPU-DA-x films with outstanding mechanical performance show an excellent self-healing capability due to the couple/decouple process of the DA reactions, and the self-healing process was qualitatively and quantitatively studied. At the same time, the networked WPU-DA-x could be recycled via hot-pressing and solution casting. At l...

Subfields: Organic Chemistry, Polymers and Plastics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/71f63b86679eacd8eb64e50b9fabf1a87d0f35d0