A self-healing elastomer with outstanding mechanical properties was designed based on urea bonds

Abstract

Owing to the demand for high sensitivity and lightweight flexible electronic devices, researchers have made efforts to develop wearable devices by integrating flexible electronic devices onto flexible and self-healing substrates. Developing self-healing materials with excellent self-healing efficiency and ultra-high mechanical performance at room temperature is very important. A new self-healing material was successfully synthesized as a high-strength polyurethane elastomer by introducing functional segments with different structural rigidities, including thiourea and oxime–urethane bonds. It was named 2,5-dithiobiurea–dimethylglyoxime–urethane complex-based polyurethane elastomer (DBTU–DOU–PU, hereinafter referred to as DDPU). The mechanical strength of DDPU can be restored to 5 MPa after repairing for 10 min at room temperature (25 ± 2 °C). After 72 h recovery, the tensile strength of DDPU is 65.4% of its initial value. The colorless and transparent DDPU material may have broad application prospects such as in electronic skin, human-computer intelligent interaction, and flexible self-healing sensors.