Self‐Healable, Highly Stretchable Modified Epoxy Resin Materials by Incorporation with Quadruple Hydrogen‐Bonded Supramolecular Polymers

Abstract

Abstract Among the multiple hydrogen bonding compounds, 2‐ureido‐4[1H]‐6‐methyl‐pyrimidinone (UPy) derivatives are most used for fabrication of functional supramolecular assemblies based on the strong quadruple hydrogen bonding between UPy moieties. In this work, a self‐healable and highly stretchable epoxy resin system with high heal efficiency is designed and prepared by the composite of UPy‐modified epoxy resin and UPy‐terminated supramolecular polymers. The elongation at break of the highly stretchable epoxy resin reaches 247% and the tensile strength of the material is 3.10 MPa with tensile test. The mechanical properties of the material (which is cut into two parts) can be restored to 99% (the elongation at break is 246% and the tensile strength is 2.80 MPa) after 2 h of heating at 90 °C. As a bulk material, the supramolecular polymer incorporated epoxy resin could maintain its mechanical properties when used as a healable substrate for conductive experiments. This line of research may provide a new approach for design and preparation of novel self‐healable epoxy resin materials.