Siloxane

Elastomer

Materials science

Elongation

Ultimate tensile strength

Self-healing

Polymer

Alternative medicine

Elastic modulus

Composite material

Self-healing material

Medicine

Toughness

Pathology

Advanced Functional Materials

Utilization of self-healing chemistry to develop synthetic polymer materials that can heal themselves with restored mechanical performance and functionality is of great interest. Self-healable polymer elastomers with tunable mechanical properties are especially attractive for a variety of applications. Herein, a series of urea functionalized poly(dimethyl siloxane)-based elastomers (U-PDMS-Es) are reported with extremely high stretchability, self-healing mechanical properties, and recoverable gas-separation performance. Tailoring the molecular weights of poly(dimethyl siloxane) or weight ratio of elastic cross-linker offers tunable mechanical properties of the obtained U-PDMS-Es, such as ultimate elongation (from 984% to 5600%), Young's modulus, ultimate tensile strength, toughness, and elastic recovery. The U-PDMS-Es can serve as excellent acoustic and vibration damping materials over a broad range of temperature (over 100 °C). The strain-dependent elastic recovery behavior of U-PDMS-Es is also studied. After mechanical damage, the U-PDMS-Es can be healed in 120 min at ambient temperature or in 20 min at 40 °C with completely restored mechanical performance. The U-PDMS-Es are also demonstrated to exhibit recoverable gas-separation functionality with retained permeability/selectivity after being damaged.

Superstretchable, Self‐Healing Polymeric Elastomers with Tunable Properties