Preparation and properties of self-healing polyurethane based on disulfide and hydrogen bonding

Cracks are an inevitable problem during the use of materials, and flexible sensors with self-healing capability are of great importance for applications in wearable devices and skin-like electronic devices. This paper prepared self-healing flexible strain sensors by compounding self-healing polyurethane with carbon nanotubes. First, by changing the ratio of disulfide bonds, a good balance between mechanical properties and self-healing efficiency was achieved in the prepared self-healing polyurethane. The most balanced sample reached 12.28 MPa in tensile strength, after 24 h of self-repair at 30 °C, the tensile strength was 7.75 MPa, and the self-repair efficiency was 63.11%; after 24 h of self-repair at 80 °C, the tensile strength was 11.64 MPa, and the self-repair efficiency reached 94.79%. Then the sensors prepared by compounding with carbon nanotubes showed a good electrochemical response, and both slow and fast repeated bending of the finger wearing the sensors yielded significantly different electrical signal changes, and the sensors were cut off and still had the same function after self-repair at 30 °C, demonstrating their excellent potential for applications in soft robots, wearable devices, etc.