A facile and on-demand optimizing strategy for polyurethane elastomers via programmable hydrogen bonding

Abstract

AbstractPolyurethane elastomers have advantages in terms of elasticity, toughness and oil-resistance because of its unique hydrogen bonding structure. It has been widely used in industry. However, the poor designability of hydrogen bonding structure in existing polyurethane elastomers severely restricts the on-demand regulation of their properties. Moreover, like most polymer materials, polyurethane elastomers are susceptible to heat or radiation induced aging which significantly limit their practical effectiveness. Herein, a facile, universal, efficient and programmable strategy based on physical modification of polyphenol aggregates was proposed, which could systematically improve the overall performance of engineering polyurethane elastomers. Through precisely manipulated heat-induced phase transition and/or photo-induced interfacial hydrogen bonding upgrading due to polyphenol aggregates, programmable strengthening and toughening effect could be achieved with high precision. Typically, the tensile strength and toughness of our proposed polyurethane elastomers could be enhanced by 3.23 and 2.22 times comparing with neat polyurethane samples, respectively. The relevant results were supported by various characterization and mathematical modeling. In addition, the polyurethane elastomers exhibited unique selective biocompatibility, rapid self-healing capability under mild conditions and nice recyclability, which could fulfill a variety of functions. Our proposed modifying strategy by using polyphenol aggregates can not only programmably optimize the comprehensive properties of polyurethane elastomers, but also inspire programmable regulation of polyurethane performance through programmable design of its certain microstructure in the future. Our proposed polyurethane materials hold big promise in the application of structure materials, programmable devices, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, environmental protection and etc.