Predictions of healing performance for solvent-promoted self-healing materials by using Hansen solubility parameters

Solvents have been used for self-healing materials for swelling mechanism. However, no study has investigated the prediction of solvent healing performance. In this work, we used Hansen solubility parameters (HSPs) to predict crack healing. A 2D solvent map was constructed by polarity and hydrogen bonding parameter. Results showed that the degree of swelling was relative to the HSP distance (D) between solvent and epoxy resin in the map. Moreover, manual healing experiments showed that solvent healing performance was correlated with swelling. Therefore, the healing performance of solvents could be predicted by using HSPs. For epoxy resin, solvents with D < 15 had excellent healing performance. This framework simultaneously considered D and water solubility and could be readily extended to fast screen green solvents for microcapsule-loaded self-healing materials. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.