Self-healing isotropical conductive adhesives filled with Ag nanowires

Microsized polystyrene(PS)-Ag nanowires/dimethylbenzylamine(DMBA)/polythiol core-shell capsules were prepared by an emulsion polymerization method. A novel kind of self-healing isotropical conductive adhesives (ICAs) was developed by using these microcapsules as healing agents. When microcracks produced by outside force reached to these healing agents, the shell layer would be destroyed automatically and the healing agents in the core would release and react with access epoxy groups in resin substrates immediately, a new network would be formed again in bulk ICAs, which has a healing effect for mechanical strength of ICAs. On the other side, the dispersed Ag nanowires in microcapsules core would also release and fill in the broken area to set up a conductive network, which will help ICAs to obtain a good or even better electrical properties. The relationship between the content of self-healing microcapsules and the healing efficiency was studied and the healing mechanism was described in detail. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.