<p class="MsoNormal">Vitrimers are a new type of thermoset polymer materials that possess thermoplastic-like rheological properties once subjected to an elevated temperature. Due to such property, vitrimers can be easily recycled and reprocessed into different shape, unlike the traditional covalently cross-linked thermoset materials. In this study, we created a thermoplastic-thermoset vitrimer blend by utilizing the bond exchange reactions (BERs) between the ester and the hydroxyl functional groups in thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and fatty acid vitrimer. We demonstrated that mechanical blending methods can be employed for fabricating the material. The mechanical shearing initiates the polymer chain entanglement while the BER can be controlled by placing the material in an elevated temperature environment. Due to the simplicity in the fabrication process, it can be easily scale up to an industrial scale for mass production purpose. By tailoring the cross-linking density and the BER, the fabricated vitrimer is not only recyclable but also possess self-healing property. Due to the abundant hydrogen bonds on its surface, the self-healing behaviour can be triggered without inputting any external energy stimulus. Due to its special properties, we strongly believe such material has a great potential in a wide range of applications for industries, including but not limited to flexible wearable electronics and adhesive materials.</p>

Self-Healable Tpu-Based Vitrimer Blend via Controlled Bond Exchange Reaction

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/SMASIS/SMASIS2021/volume/85499

ASME 2021 Smart Materials, Adaptive Structures and Intelligent Systems (SMASIS2021)

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