Chemical Research in Chinese Universities ›› 2010, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (3): 496-500.

• Articles • Previous Articles    

Preparation and Characterization of Microcapsules for Self-healing Materials

LIAO Le-ping*, ZHANG Wei, ZHAO Yang and LI Wu-Jun   

  1. National Key Laboratory for Remanufacturing, Academy of Armored Force Engineering, Beijing 100072, P. R. China
  • Received:2009-08-24 Revised:2009-10-10 Online:2010-05-25 Published:2010-07-27
  • Contact: LIAO Le-ping. E-mail: liaoleping.2007@163.com
  • Supported by:

    Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Nos.50775222 and 50735006).

Abstract:

The urea-formaldehyde(UF) capsules filled with a healing agent, a mixture of epoxy resins(epoxy 711 and E-51) as core material, were produced by means of one step in-situ polymerization. The characteristics of these microcapsules were studied via scanning electron microscopy(SEM), particle size analysis, FTIR and DSC/TGA. The results show that the dispersed and integrated microcapsules of 5 μm in shell thickness were synthesized successfully. The capsules were produced with diameters ranging from 10 to 250 μm via controlling agitation rate. Young’s mo- dulus of the capsule was a little lower than those of the epoxy resins, but the microcapsules having such a shell thickness were robust enough to survive handling during manufacturing self-healing composites. When damage occurred in the epoxy matrix, the crack could rupture the microcapsule to make the repairing agent release.

Key words: Urea-formaldehyde; Microcapsule; Epoxy resin; Self-healing