Date of Award

January 2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Chemistry

First Advisor

Guodong Du

Abstract

Inspired from natural species that can repair themselves upon injury, a new class of smart materials that fix themselves is of interest. They can repair physical and mechanical damages, thus increasing shelf life and preventing failures. These types of self-healing synthetic thermosetting polymers from renewable resources can help resolve problems caused by using fossil resources, such as environmental pollution, non-recyclability, and non-repairing ability. In addition to the self-healing, the first chapter also presents the Diels-Alder (DA) reaction, the underlying chemistry that helps produce polymers with desirable properties. The simple application of heat in thermosets gives self-healable, recyclable, and reusable materials. In Chapter 2, our research utilizes the diene units in furan-derived poly(silyl ether)s (PSEs) and, it aims to crosslink them by DA reaction with bismaleimide as the DA reaction is an enabling method for self-healing polymers. Preliminary results show crosslinking is feasible with PSEs. DSC and TGA methods are used to analyze thermal properties like stability and reversibility of crosslinked polymers with varying content of crosslinkers. This crosslinked network polymer also shows excellent self-healing ability, recyclability, and degradability.

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