Novel composite films with strong self healing ability

News Production & Lab

A recent study presents epoxy composite films modified by polyurea-based double-walled microcapsules.

A laboratory. — It was demonstrated that the glass transition temperature of the final crosslinked network could be controlled by the addition of a monoallylated monomer. Image source: kwanchaift - stock.adobe.com (symbol image).

The built-in self-healing capability, which can substantially repair the damaged polymeric materials, has become research hotspots in recent years. In a new study, double-walled microcapsules were introduced in epoxy composite films to obtain a strong self-healing ability.

Self-healing

Test results showed that the epoxy composite films with 3.0 wt% microcapsules had the highest mechanical property improvement and the composite films with 5.0 wt% microcapsules achieved the highest self-healing efficiency of 61 %.

The study has been published in Progress in Organic Coatings, Volume 157, August 2021.