Self-assembled elastomer nanocomposites utilizing C60 and poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) via thermally reversible Diels-Alder reaction with self-healing and remolding abilities

- C60 could be co-assembled into PB phase of the furan modified SBS via Diels-Alder (DA) reaction at the molecular level.
- The morphology of SBS could be effectively tailored by addition of C60 and even small amount of C60 could lead to great change in the morphologies.
- The hybrids based on SBS and C60 possessed the self-healing and remolding abilities via retro-Diels-Alder (rDA) reaction.

In this article, C60 could be co-assembled into PB phase of the furan modified poly(styrene-b-butadiene-b-styrene) (SBS) via Diels-Alder (DA) reaction at the molecular level. The morphology of SBS could be effectively tailored by the incorporation of C60 and even small amount of C60 could lead to great change in the morphologies of SBS. Three types of morphologies of SBS could be observed as the content of C60 was increased from 0.1 to 2 wt%, which included honeycomb like, worm-like bi-continuous phase and their intermediate transition state. In the meantime, it was unexpectedly found that C60 could be used as effective crosslinking agents to build the network toward the furan modified SBS via DA reaction. Therefore, its solvent resistance, elastic resilience and tensile strength were greatly improved for the chemical crosslinking. Besides, due to the thermal reversible character for DA reaction, the hybrids based on SBS and C60 possessed the self-healing and remolding abilities via retro-Diels-Alder (rDA) reaction. All in all, C60 could provide the multiple functions toward the modification of SBS via DA reaction.

366