A facile fabrication of shape memory polymer nanocomposites with fast light-response and self-healing performance

Despite tremendous advances in the preparation of smart materials, it remains a great challenge to integrate shape memory and self-healing properties into one material system, which have received increasing interests because of their many potential applications. Herein, the PCL/TPU blends are prepared as shape memory matrix by simple solution blending. Then the polydopamine (PDA) nanospheres acted as photothermal fillers were incorporated into PCL/TPU blends which enables the system to exhibit excellent light-response shape memory effect with a shape recovery ratio of 100%. Besides, the nanocomposites also own good self-healing performance because of the microporous structure. The surface crack can be healed in 150 s under light irradiation, and the healing efficiency can reach 78.53%. Therefore, the fast light-response shape memory effect and rapidly self-healing property, along with the facile fabrication processes, make PCL/TPU/PDA nanocomposites ideal for a variety of applications, such as biomedical microdevices, artificial muscles and soft robotics.