Development of robust self-healable heterogeneous crosslinked films

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In recent years the development of self-healable thermosets has drawn significant efforts from both academiaand industry. Due to the built-in ability to recover their material properties after physical damage, thesethermosets can resist catastrophic failure thus extending their lifetime. Furthermore, self-healing technologycan improve the recyclability of conventional thermosets, thereby conserving fossil fuels. However, mostself-healable networks have been designed to be fairly soft because rapid void-filling ability to flow to fill thedamaged parts.In collaboration with Dural, a division of Multibond Inc, this proposed research aims to develop robustcrosslinked networks exhibiting enhanced mechnical properties, while retaining effective self-healability.Compared with conventional physical blending, our effective approach centers on covalent incorporation ofinorganic nanoparticles (diameter < 10 nm) into self-healable matrix through a novel block copolymertechnology. Consequently, the nanoparticles will be uniformly and covalently distributed in the crosslinkedthermosets. Our approach can offer versatility toward the development of self-healable networks exhibiting notonly effective self-healability and high mechanical property but also dimensional and thermal stability andsolvent resistance common to conventional thermosets.