High performance self-healing polymeric nanocomposite coatings

In this article, bio-derived, self-healing nanocomposites are prepared using nanofillers, MWCNTs, TiO2 nanoparticles and hybrid of MWCNTs/TiO2. The hybrid nanofillers are prepared by decorating the MWCNTs with TiO2 nanoparticles. The ultrasonication technique was used to develop the nanocomposites. The addition of nanofillers has significantly improved the thermal stability, micromechanical properties, and anticorrosive ability of self-healing polymeric coatings. The influence of addition of different nanofillers on the surface roughness as well as on adhesive strength of the self-healing materials has also been investigated using atomic force microscopy (AFM) and pull off adhesion tester. A comparison is carried out among the three types of nanofillers, for different properties. The results obtained indicate that the adhesion strength of the thermo-reversible self-healing polymeric matrix increased up to 317 % by the addition of 0.4 wt% loading ratio of inorganic nanofillers.