Extremely tough and healable elastomer realized via reducing the crystallinity of its rigid domain

Abstract

We propose a new concept, called “toughening the rigidity”, for the field of self-healing materials. Here, metal ions were added to a material to sacrifice the crystallinity of its rigid domain, and the resulting elastomer displayed high toughness and self-healing ability. The as-synthesized healable elastomer specifically presented a nearly unprecedented toughness value of 228.86 MJ m⁻³, a value higher than those of most reported self-healing elastomers.