Synthesis and characterization of silverthiolate dynamic crosslinking waterborne polyurethane with room-temperature self-healing properties

• Published in: Materials advances Vol. 3; no. 16; pp. 669 - 6618
• Main Authors: Zhang, Mengyun, Ding, Shanjun, Cong, Riming, Luo, Yunjun
• Format: Journal Article
• Published: 15.08.2022
• ISSN: 2633-5409
• DOI: 10.1039/d2ma00300g

Waterborne polyurethanes (WPUs), commonly used as coatings and adhesives, produce microcracks when suffering from severe environmental stimuli or continuous mechanical loads. So far, there have only been limited self-healing functional groups, such as disulfide bonds, or DielsAlder reactions, utilized in WPUs. Herein, we have prepared a novel self-healing waterborne polyurethane (SHWPU) by introducing silverthiol coordination interactions, which exhibit excellent self-healing performance. WPUAg@S-0.50 with microcracks could recover to its original state at room temperature within 30 min. The self-healing efficiency in terms of its tensile strength is 98.69%, demonstrating that introducing silver-thiol coordination interactions is an effective strategy to realize self-healing. Silverthiol coordination interactions were introduced into a waterborne polyurethane (WPU) matrix. Due to the synergy of the Ag and thiol coordination interactions, WPUAg@S-0.50 exhibits the best self-healing performance.