This work of Professor Zhengwei You and Professor Junfen Sun from the College of Materials Science and Engineering, Donghua University, China, have been published by Science Bulletin . There is usually a trade−off between high mechanical strength and dynamic self−healing because the mechanisms of these properties are mutually exclusive. Herein, this team design and fabricate a fluorinated phenolic polyurethane (FPPU) elastomer based on octafluoro−4,4’−biphenol to overcome this challenge. This fluorine−based motif not only tunes interchain interactions through π−π stacking between aromatic rings and free−volume among polymer chains but also improves the reversibility of phenol−carbamate bonds via electron−withdrawing effect of fluorine atoms. The developed FPPU elastomer shows the highest recorded puncture energy (648.0 mJ), high tensile strength (27.0 MPa), as well as excellent self−healing efficiency (92.3%), along with low surface energy (50.9 MJ m −2 ), notch−insensitivity, and reprocessability compared with non−fluorinated counterpart biphenolic polyurethane (BPPU) elastomer. Taking advantage of the above−mentioned merits of FPPU elastomer, this team prepare an anti−fouling triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) with a self−healable, and reprocessable elastic substrate. Benefiting from stronger electron affinity of fluorine atoms than hydrogen atoms, this electronic device exhibits ultrahigh peak open−circuit voltage of 302.3 V compared to the TENG fabricated from BPPU elastomer. Furthermore, a healable and stretchable conductive composite is prepared. This research provides a distinct and general pathway toward constructing high−performance elastomers and will enable a series of new applications.
Science Bulletin