Dual rapid self-healing and easily recyclable carbon fiber reinforced vitrimer composites

Traditional carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites (CFRECs) pose significant challenges to sustainable development due to their non-self-healable and non-recyclable nature, which causes environmental pollutions . To address these challenges, our research focuses on the design of carbon fiber reinforced vitrimer (CF/vitrimer) composites system with dual self-healing properties (self-healing resin and self-healing interface) and dual recyclable capabilities (recycling vitrimer resin and recycling CF). On the one hand, the scratch on the vitrimer resin exhibited rapid self-healing properties (achieving ˃ 95 % recovery within 5 min). Additionally, the self-healing interface was constructed between the functionalized CF and the vitrimer resin, and even after undergoing five self-healing cycles, the self-healing interface maintained a self-healing efficiency of 77.4 %. On the other hand, the CF/vitrimer composites could be easily and effectively degraded in ethylene glycol , resulting in recycled vitrimer resin and recycled CF. These results not only indicate the potential for developing other types of self-healing CF/vitrimer composites but also highlight their contributions to sustainable development.