Disulfide exchange assisted self-healing epoxy/PDMS/graphene oxide nanocomposites

Vitrimers, a class of polymeric networks that change their topology above a threshold temperature, have been investigated in recent years. In order to further extend their properties, in this research, we demonstrate disulfide exchange assisted polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)- and graphene oxide (GO)-involved epoxy vitrimers, which exhibit a reduction in glass transition temperature and storage modulus with increase in flexural strain and low-temperature self-healing. Stress relaxation and Arrhenius study were carried out for the analysis of vitrimeric behavior, where the prepared epoxy material displays self-healing at 80 °C for 5 min, whereas a low-temperature self-healing (60 °C) was observed for epoxy/PDMS/GO nanocomposites.