Self-healing amine hardener

摘要

The concept of self-healing systems has provided a means of repairing or healing microcracks in materials. Two strategies have been identified: autonomous healing (which involves the inclusion of microcapsules containing a healing) and external stimuli mending (which involves the application of an external stimuli, such as heat, to induce the repairing process). The authors here refer to work reported by Wudl et al that used the Diels Alder and retro-Diels Alder reactions as a means to produce self-healing polymers. For self-healing epoxy resin systems, reported work has focused on introducing the Diels Alder functionality in the epoxy monomer. In this paper, however, the strategy described involves incorporating the Diels Alder group in a diamine crosslinker, which has the benefit that the coating now uses cheaper commercially available epoxy resins.