Novel system with damage initiated autonomous healing property based on heterogeneous blends of ethylene-methacrylic acid ionomer

Self-healing behavior of ionomer blends containing both rapidly crystallizing phase and with higher amount of amorphous phase has not yet been studied. This work gives a new insight to understand the development of materials with intrinsic self-healing property. In particular, binary blends based on poly(ethylene-co-methacrylic acid sodium salt) (EMNa)/Poly(vinyl alcohol-co-ethylene) (EVA) and epoxidized natural rubber (ENR), were studied by ballistic puncture tests. In the composition range explored (15-50 wt.% of EVA and ENR), the self-healing characteristics decrease with the increasing amount of EVA but are maintained in all ranges for ENR/EMNa blends. The ballistic damage initiated autonomous healing was observed by optical microscopy and the healing was further analyzed by thermal and mechanical behaviors of the blend materials. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.