Rheology and self-healing of amine functionalized polyolefins

The rheological and self-healing behavior of a class of catalytically synthesized amine-functionalized polyolefins is investigated. We demonstrate that these materials possess tunable rheological properties according to the molecular weight and display autonomous self-healing. The linear viscoelastic properties are modeled using a tube-based model developed by Hawke et al. [J. Rheol., 60, 297–310, (2016)] to calculate several model parameters that describe the individual chain dynamics. The self-healing response is described by findings from the reptation model as well as recent theory on associating polymer networks with reversible bonds. The cooperation between experiments, modeling, and theory provide insight into designing new materials with programmable rheological properties and superior self-healing ability.