Silicones are mainly used in the industry for their good mechanical and insulation properties at elevated temperature. Unfortunately to bring rigidity to these materials, a vulcanization step is occurring during the synthesis resulting in non-healable materials. The aim of this study is to reduce the impact on the environment, by saving a vulcanization step, allowing recycling and self-healable silicones.<br/><br/>To avoid the chemical crosslinking step we focused our work on supramolecular modified silicone compounds previously investigated by Yilgor et al and commercialized by Wacker under the name GENIOMER©. These systems (Figure 1) contain hard segment (HS) which interact by hydrogen bonding alternated by silicone soft segment (SS). The large difference of solubility parameters of both segments creates a microphase separation. These compounds exhibit good thermal and mechanical properties but no healing at room temperature.<br/><br/>The main challenge of this project is to manage the balance between rigidity and chains dynamics allowing self-healable materials with good mechanical properties. In this context we have synthesized and added to supramolecular silicone formulations a new additive. The addition lowers a little material rigidity (which could be compensated by addition of fillers), but brings self-healing abilities at room temperatures to those materials (Figure 2).

Hydrogen bonded silicone rubber: A new additive improving self-healing

256th National Meeting (2018)

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