Coupling the Microscopic Healing Behaviour of Coatings to the Thermoreversible Diels-Alder Network Formation

While thermally reversible polymer network coatings based on the Diels-Alder reaction are widely studied, the mechanisms responsible for the heating-mediated healing of damage is still not well understood. The combination of microscopic evaluation techniques and fundamental insights for the thermoreversible network formation in the bulk and coating shed light on the mechanisms behind the damage healing events. The thermomechanical properties of thermoset and elastomer coatings, crosslinked by the furan-maleimide Diels-Alder cycloaddition reaction, were studied in bulk and compared to the thermal behaviour applied as coatings onto aluminium substrates. The damage sealing of thermoset (Tg = 79 °C) and elastomer (Tg = −49 °C) coatings were studied using nano-lithography and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The sealing event is studied and modelled at multiple temperatures and correlated to the changes in the network structure and corresponding thermomechanical properties.