A self-reinforcing and self-healing elastomer with high strength, unprecedented toughness and room-temperature reparability

Mater Horiz. 2021 Jan 1;8(1):267-275. doi: 10.1039/d0mh01447h. Epub 2020 Nov 17.

Abstract

The development of intrinsic self-healing elastomers with simultaneous high mechanical strength, toughness and room-temperature reparability remains a formidable challenge. Herein, we report a mechano-responsive strategy, known as strain induced crystallization, to address the above issue, whereby synthesized elastomers with unprecedented high mechanical performances are bestowed with room-temperature self-healing materials, achieving tensile strength, toughness and fracture energy values of 29.0 MPa, 121.8 MJ m-3 and 104.1 kJ m-2, respectively.