Room-Temperature Self-Healing Elastomer based on Van der Waals Forces in Air and under Water

Abstract

With the development of flexible wearable electronic devices, researches on self-healing conductive materials have become prevalent. However, the self-healing performance of most conductive self-healing materials is commonly achieved by the external stimulus that may cause damage to the equipment. Pparticularly, these selfhealing materials may lose the self-healing properties when exposed to a high-humidity environment. Here, we adopted two hydrophobic monomers (2-methoxyethyl acrylate and ethyl methacrylate) to obtain a self-healing elastomer that could display self-healing properties in air or under water though van der Waals forces. The quality and mechanical properties of the elastomer material could keep stable after stored under water for half a month. This elastomer material was capable of self-healing in different environments with self-repair efficiencies more than 50% in deionized water, strong acid solution and strong alkaline solution. The self-repair efficiencies were up to 77% at room temperature(T=25°C) and 64% at low temperature (T=-20°C) in air.