Investigations of Self-Healing Property of Chitosan-Reinforced Epoxy Dye Composite Coatings

Abstract

Chitosan has a very wide application range in different parts of life such as in biomedical and antimicrobial areas. In recent years the self-healing property of chitosan becomes more of an issue. In the study chitosan was used to obtain a self-healing composite material. An epoxy dye was converted to a self-healing coating. Different types of samples were prepared by coating the glass substrates with a polymer matrix reinforced with various amounts of chitosan. The samples were characterized by fourier transform Infrared (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). In addition, self-healing test was applied as a primary objective of this research. In this respect, the samples were scratched with a very thin pin, and they were analyzed by SEM periodically. It was observed that chitosan-reinforced dyes showed self-healing property. Mechanism of the self-healing process was also scrutinized.