High-Strength, Fast Self-Healing, Aging-Insensitive Elastomers with Shape Memory Effect

Self-healing materials, which can autonomously repair damages like living organisms, have undergone extensive development in the last decades. The bottleneck problems for their practical applications are long healing time, inferior mechanical strength, and aging sensitivity. Here, a new class of polymeric materials rationally grafted with oligo poly(ethylene glycol) is reported. The network based on the formation of multiple weak hydrogen bonds endows the elastomers with good comprehensive performances including high stretchability (725%), high strength (4.20 MPa), and fast self-healing process (40 s). Benefiting from characteristic multiple weak hydrogen bond interactions, the fractured elastomers maintain high healing efficiency even after aging for 192 h, showing an unusual aging insensitivity. A Sudoku structural device based on the developed elastomer shows shape memory effect, providing a new avenue for fabricating novel smart devices with complicated shapes.