Water accelerated self-healing of hydrophobic copolymers.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33184268.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19405-5 and PMC identifier 7665198.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Previous studies have shown that copolymer compositions can significantly impact self-healing properties. This was accomplished by enhancement of van der Waals (vdW) forces which facilitate self-healing in relatively narrow copolymer compositional range. In this work we report the acceleration of self-healing in alternating/random hydrophobic acrylic-based copolymers in the presence of confined water molecules. Under these conditions competing vdW interactions do not allow H<sub>2</sub>O-diester H-bonding, thus forcing nBA side groups to adapt L-shape conformations, generating stronger dipole-dipole interactions resulting in shorter inter-chain distances compared to 'key-and-lock' associations without water. The perturbation of vdW forces upon mechanical damage in the presence of controllable amount of confined water is energetically unfavorable leading the enhancement of self-healing efficiency of hydrophobic copolymers by a factor of three. The concept may be applicable to other self-healing mechanisms involving reversible covalent bonding, supramolecular chemistry, or polymers with phase-separated morphologies.