Preparation of hybrid microcapsules and application to self-healing agent

It was tried to prepare hybrid microcapsules composed of porous inorganic particles and epoxy resin shell and to apply to the self-healing agent. A water soluble imidazole of gelation promoting agent as the core material was microencapsulated in the porous inorganic particles, which were coated with epoxy resin. The porous inorganic particles were prepared with the interfacial reaction between sodium silicate and calcium ion in the (W/O) dispersion. In the experiment, the concentration of sodium silicate and the mixing speed to form the (W/O) dispersion were mainly changed. The porous inorganic particles were immersed in the aqueous solution dissolving imidazole and then, added in the corn oil dissolving epoxy resin to be microencapsulated with gelated epoxy resin. The hybrid microcapsules containing imidazole with the mean diameters from 200 to 400 mu m were able to be prepared and to induce the gelation reaction of epoxy resin by breaking the hybrid microcapsule shell due to heating. Copyright (c) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.