Abstract
Self-healable elastomers are extremely attractive due to their ability to prolong product lifetime. An additional function that could further expand their applications is strong adhesion force to clean and dusty surfaces. This study reports a series of autonomous self-healable and highly adhesive elastomers (ASHA-Elastomer) that are fabricated via a simple, efficient, and scalable process. The obtained elastomers exhibit outstanding mechanical properties with elongation at break up to 2102% and toughness (modulus of toughness) of 1.73 MJ m–3. The damaged ASHA-Elastomer can autonomously self-heal with full recovery of functionalities, and the healing process is not affected by the presence of water. The elastomers are found to possess an ultrahigh adhesion force up to 3488 N m−1, greatly outperforming previously reported self-healing adhesive elastomers. Furthermore, the adhesion force of the ASHA-Elastomer is negligibly affected by dust on the surface, in stark contrast with regular adhesive polymers that have adhesion strengths extremely sensitive to dust. The successful development of high-toughness, autonomous self-healable, and ultra-adhesive elastomers will enable a wide range of applications with enhanced longevity and versatility, including their use in sealants, adhesives, and stretchable devices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2006298 |
| Journal | Advanced Functional Materials |
| Volume | 31 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 22 2021 |
Funding
Z.Z. and N.G. contributed equally to this work. This work was funded by the U.S.‐China Clean Energy Research Center for Building Energy Efficiency (CERC BEE) under the Building Technologies Office (BTO) of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), under contract no. DE‐AC05‐00OR22725. This manuscript was authored by UT‐Battelle, LLC under contract no. DE‐AC05‐00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non‐exclusive, paid‐up, irrevocable, worldwide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan ( http://energy.gov/downloads/doe‐public‐access‐plan ).
Keywords
- autonomous self-healing
- elastomer
- hydrogen bonding
- strong adhesion