Recent Achievements of Self-Healing Graphene/Polymer Composites

Abstract

Self-healing materials have attracted much attention because that they possess the ability to increase the lifetime of materials and reduce the total cost of systems during the process of long-term use; incorporation of functional material enlarges their applications. Graphene, as a promising additive, has received great attention due to its large specific surface area, ultrahigh conductivity, strong antioxidant characteristics, thermal stability, high thermal conductivity, and good mechanical properties. In this brief review, graphene-containing polymer composites with self-healing properties are summarized including their preparations, self-healing conditions, properties, and applications. In addition, future perspectives of graphene/polymer composites are briefly discussed.

Hybrid Nanocomposites of Cellulose/Carbon-Nanotubes/Polyurethane with Rapidly Water Sensitive Shape Memory Effect and Strain Sensing Performance

“…Each film sample presents a smoothly nonlinear elastic behavior until the breaking point, which is mainly ascribed to the fracture of the film along the stretching direction. Some studies, including the new reports [41,42,43,44], suggest that the commixture with CNF-C and CNTs can enhance the mechanical properties of TPU significantly, especially the tensile strength and elongation at break (Figure 4b), but with the continued increase of the content of nanoparticles, the strength of TPU/CNF-C/CNTs nanocomposite films would decrease slowly. Figure 4b shows the best mechanical properties of the TPU/CNF-C/CNTs-6 film.…”

Self-Healing Mechanisms for 3D-Printed Polymeric Structures: From Lab to Reality

“…The process of 3D printing is both AM and rapid prototyping, and involves the joining of materials to create objects based on data modelled in 3D, generally in multiple layers [ 69 ]. Moreover, 3D printing consists of various AM techniques that allow the rapid yet flexible fabrication of complex 3D structures, with different characteristics from the sub-micron to the multi-meter scale [ 70 ]. There has been extraordinary progress in the basic and applied knowledge, related to the structure and treatment of 3D printing, and its characteristics, yet many gaps remain [ 49 ].…”

On the Race for More Stretchable and Tough Hydrogels

“…The use of graphene has become an interesting strategy to obtain materials with improved mechanical properties in terms of stretch, chemical stability, electrical and thermal conductivity, as well as good self-healing abilities [45,46,47]. Interesting results were obtained by Pan et al [48] after carrying out free-radical polymerization reactions involving AAm, 2-(dimethylamino)ethylacrylatemethyl chloride (DAC), and N , N ′-methylene bisacrylamide (MBAAm) in the presence of graphene nanosheet contents at pH value of 10 (Figure 4A).…”