Designing Self-Healable Aromatic Copolymers and Olefinic Composites

Abstract

Self-healing polymers capable of recovering from mechanical damage are promising materials for advanced applications, especially those involving mechanical and/or physical fatigue. In these studies, we have developed techniques to achieve autonomous self-healing in commodity Styrene/n-butyl acrylate copolymers. The mechanism of self-healing in the designed polymers involves inter-and/or intrachain non-covalent interactions between π-cloud and polar linkages of acrylic nBA in random/preferentially alternating copolymers. A combination of spectroscopic tools, thermo-mechanical analysis, and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations has been used to elucidate the mechanism of self-healing. These studies further show the incorporation of dipolar C-F groups to understand the effect of having fluorinated aromatics on self-healing functionality. This dissertation also describes the effect of an interplay between dipolar and polar forces on the self-healing of novel polyionic liquids containing ionic species. Lastly, self-healing composites composed of commodity self-healing matrix and fiber reinforcements were developed, which can retain self-healing functionality for 25,000 damages and a temperature range of -196 to 85 °C