Rapid and efficient polymer/graphene based multichannel self-healing material via Diels-Alder reaction

It is a challenge to manufacture self-healing material that possesses rapid, efficient and multichannel self-healing capability. Herein, we design and synthesize a polymer/graphene based self-healing material with a cross-linking network structure via Diels-Alder (D-A) reaction. The as-prepared material can be healed after damage under the stimuli of heat, infrared light, and microwave with controlling the formation and cleavage of D-A bonds. And it exhibits rapid (IR light-5 s, Heat/Microwave-60 s), efficient (efficiencies are 90% after heat-healed, 106% after IR-healed, and 133% after microwave-healed, respectively), and multichannel self-healing ability (i.e. can be self-healed in multiple ways). Furthermore, functionalized graphene oxide (FGO) has high grafting rate of 47.5% for GO-FA (graphene oxide (GO) was functionalized by Furfurylamine, FA), and 85.3% for GO-MDA (GO was functionalized by 6-Maleimidocaproic acid, MDA). In addition, photo-thermal conversion efficiency of the self-healing material was calculated with the average value reached up to 59.8%. The outstanding self-healing performances suggest that this self-healing material has huge promising potential applications in military equipment, protective coating and building materials, etc. (C) 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.