Development of reversibly crosslinked self-healing materials

     Crosslinked polymers have proven successful for creating a variety of robust materials and adhesives. By including reversible linkages in such networks, crosslinked materials can be created that are capable of depolymerization and reverse gelation. The Diels-Alder (DA) and retro-Diels-Alder (rDA) reactions are being explored as one route for creating such materials. At low temperatures chemical equilibrium is dominated by the DA reaction and a crosslinked material is formed. At higher temperatures the rDA reaction dominates and such materials revert to low molecular weight oligomers. This process can be repeated multiple times.

Figure1: Mixture of multi-functional furan and maleimide monomers. At high temperatures the material forms a viscous liquid, while at lower temperatures the material behaves as a rubber or glass.