Abstract
Nowadays, self-healing materials have been studied actively in electronics, soft robotics, aerospace, and automobiles because they can prolong the life span of the materials. However, overcoming the trade-off relationship between mechanical properties and self-healing performance is challenging. Herein, graphene oxide-polyaniline (GO-PANI) filler was introduced to overcome this challenge because GO has a highly excellent modulus, and nitrogen atoms in PANI can endow a self-healing ability through hydrogen bonds. Aside from the hydrogen bond in PANI, the hydrogen bond in the carbonyl group and the disulfide exchange bond in the epoxy matrix also helped the materials heal efficiently. Therefore, the modulus of SV-GPN1 (Self-healing Vitrimer-GO-PANI1) reached 770 MPa, and a 65.0% healing efficiency was demonstrated. The modulus and self-healing efficiency were enhanced after adding GO-PANI filler. The self-healing ability, however, deteriorated when adding more GO-PANI filler because it hindered the collision between the molecules. Meanwhile, SV-GPN1 was excellent in reproducibility, which was proven by the experiment that 16.50 mm thick SV-GPN1 also displayed a self-healing ability. Thus, SV-GPN1 can be applied to structural materials in industries like aerospace because of its self-healing ability, excellent modulus, and reproducibility.