Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jan 20, 2026

Fabrication of Mechanically Tunable and Bioactive Metal Scaffolds for Biomedical Applications
Published on: December 8, 2015
Self-Healing Mechanism of Microcracks on Waterborne Polyurethane with Tunable Disulfide Bond Contents
Mengyun Zhang1, Fengqi Zhao1,2, Yunjun Luo1
1School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, P. R. China.
Abstract:
Self-healing mechanism of microcracks on waterborne polyurethane (WPU) with varied disulfide bond contents was investigated thoroughly in this paper. The self-healing process could be observed by an optical microscope, which was divided into two steps. The first step was the cohesive healing movement, closely related with microphase separations and further characterized by the Fourier transform infrared peak fitting, differential scanning calorimetry, and dynamic mechanical thermal analysis. The second step of the exchange reactions of disulfide bonds could be confirmed by the in situ Raman and tensile mechanics. In addition, the cohesive healing behavior was quantitatively described by the kinetic method, and the exchange reaction active energies of disulfide bonds were also calculated to be 20.42 kJ/mol by gel permeation chromatography tests. The best self-healing performance of SHWPUs was WPU-8, and it could be healed at 75 °C in 15 min with 100% self-healing efficiency. Combining the self-healing process observation with the kinetic analysis can provide deep insights into the self-healing mechanism of microcracks.
Related Concept Videos
Microcracking in Concrete
09:56Fabrication of Mechanically Tunable and Bioactive Metal Scaffolds for Biomedical Applications
09:57A Facile and Efficient Approach for the Production of Reversible Disulfide Cross-linked Micelles
Bond Energies and Bond Lengths
Valence Bond Theory
Peptide Bonds

