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- 2016 (2) (entfernen)
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- Self-healing (1)
Healable materials are able to repair inflicted damages, herin often applied: dynamic covalent polymer networks. We have shown in this study that light of different colors shift the Diels-Alder and retro Diels-Alder crosslinking and decrosslinking equilibrium. This effect was utilized for self-healing of a polymer film. Small-angle X-ray scattering was used to quantifiy the polymeric mesh size on a nanoscale.
Healable materials could play an important role in reducing the environmental footprint of our
modern technological society through extending the life cycles of consumer products and constructions. However, as most healing processes are carried out by heat alone, the ability to heal damage generally kills the parent material’s thermal and mechanical properties. Here we
present a dynamic covalent polymer network whose thermal healing ability can be switched ‘on’ and ‘off’ on demand by light, thereby providing local control over repair while retaining the advantageous macroscopic properties of static polymer networks. We employ a photoswitchable furan-based crosslinker, which reacts with short and mobile maleimidesubstituted poly(lauryl methacrylate) chains forming strong covalent bonds while simultaneously allowing the reversible, spatiotemporally resolved control over thermally induced de- and re-crosslinking. We reason that our system can be adapted to more complex materials and has the potential to impact applications in responsive coatings, photolithography and microfabrication.