Self-healing polyurethane based on disulfide bond and hydrogen bond

Tough and transparent polyurethane networks with self-healing capability at mild temperature conditions were successfully prepared in a 1-pot procedure. The self-healing ability of synthesized polyurethane comes from the covalent disulfide metathesis and non-covalent H-bonding. The mechanical testing indicates that disulfide metathesis reforms the covalent bonds on a longer time scale, while H-bonding gives rise to a healing efficiency of around 46% in the early healing processing. The compromise between mechanical performance and healing capability is reached by tailoring the concentration of disulfide. The tensile strength of the sample with 100% self-heal efficiency can get to 5.01 MPa, which can be explained by higher mobility of polymer chain under ambient temperature from creep testing.