Repulsive segregation of fluoroalkyl side chains turns a cohesive polymer into a mechanically tough, ultrafast self-healable, nonsticky elastomer.
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ABSTRACT: Dynamic crosslinking of flexible polymer chains via attractive and reversible interactions is widely employed to obtain autonomously self-healable elastomers. However, this design leads to a trade-off relationship between the strength and self-healing speed of the material, i.e., strong crosslinks provide a mechanically strong elastomer with slow self-healing property. To address this issue, we report an "inversion" concept, in which attractive poly(ethyl acrylate-random-methyl acrylate) chains are dynamically crosslinked via repulsively segregated fluoroalkyl side chains attached along the main chain. The resulting elastomer self-heals rapidly (> 90% within 15 min) via weak but abundant van der Waals interactions among matrix polymers, while the dynamic crosslinking provides high fracture stress (≈2 MPa) and good toughness (≈17 MJ m-3). The elastomer has a nonsticky surface and selectively self-heals only at the damaged faces due to the surface segregation of the fluoroalkyl chains. Moreover, our elastomer strongly adheres to polytetrafluoroethylene plates (≈60 N cm-2) via hot pressing.
SUBMITTER: Miwa Y
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9314360 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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