Multifunctional, robust, and self-healable polyurethane coatings cross-linked by Diels-Alder reaction of calix[4] arenes containing furan groups

Self-healing coatings can restore their performance after inevitable damage and are promising in the industry owing to their longer service life and lower repair cost. The use of Diels-Alder reaction bonds is well-known to generate thermally self-healing coatings. In this study, a series of cross-linked self-healing polyurethane (PU) coatings were synthesized through Diels-Alder reactions of p-tert-butyl calix[4]arene bearing furan groups (C4A-FA) as a new chain extender and a bismaleimide (BMI) polyether amine as a Diels-Alder cross-linking agent. Adding C4A-FA to PUs improves their mechanical properties, thermal stability, and self-healing ability. Additionally, these modifications can result in the formation of composite networks with PU that exhibit thermoreversibility and self-healing properties. These changes have led to PUs containing modified calix[4]arene (C4A-FA) having better properties compared with unmodified calix[4]arene PUs. The properties of prepared coatings were evaluated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscope, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analyses (TGA), and tensile tests compared with a typical PU sample. The tensile and TGA results show an improvement in the thermal and mechanical properties of the polymers by increasing the C4A-FA content. By replacing 15% of butandiol (BDO) with C4A-FA in PU pure, the tensile strength increased from 1.69 to 5.14 MPa. Furthermore, adding diels-alder (DA) bonds enhanced the tensile strength to 10.49 MPa for PU-C4A15-DA. According to DSC results, a broad endothermic peak from nearly 80-140(degrees)C confirmed the retro-DA reactions in the synthesized thermoreversible samples. The healing efficiency of the PU-C4A15-DA sample was obtained at 92.5% (measured by tensile test), which is the highest value among cross-linked self-healing PUs reported in the literature.