Distinct Mechanical and Self-Healing Properties in Two Polydimethylsiloxane Coordination Polymers with Fine-Tuned Bond Strength

Coordination bonds are effective for constructing highly efficient self-healing materials as their strength is highly tunable. To design self-healing polymers with better performance, it is important to get a profound understanding of the structure-property relationships. However, this is challenging for self-healing polymers based on coordination bonds, because many parameters, such as bond energy, bond dynamics, and coordination number will have an essential effect on the mechanical and self-healing properties of the polymer. In this work, we synthesized two poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) polymers cross-linked by different Zn(II)-diiminopyridine coordination complexes (denoted as PDMS-NNN-Zn, PDMS-MeNNN-Zn respectively). The two cross-linking Zn(II)-diiminopyridine complexes are similar in coordination modes, but differ in coordination dynamics. As manifested by ITC, theology, and tensile experiments, we confirm that the coordination bond in PDMS-MeNNN-Zn polymer films is weaker but more dynamic. Consequently, the PDMS-MeNNN-Zn polymer has poorer mechanical strength but higher stretchability and better self-healing properties. The inflicted cracks on PDMS-MeNNN-Zn polymer films can be completely healed after healing at room temperature for only 30 min with healing efficiencies higher than 90%. Such fast self-healing properties have never been achieved in self-healing polymers based on coordination bonds. Our results also demonstrate the important impact of the thermodynamic stability and kinetic lability of coordination complexes on the mechanical and self-healing properties of polymers. Such a comprehensive understanding is helpful for further design of novel synthetic polymers, which can achieve an optimal balance between the mechanical strength and self-healing performance.