Synthesis of Self-healing and Light-, Thermal- and Humidity-induced Deformative Polyurethane Actuator.

Intelligent actuating materials have drawn enormous attention because of their potential applications in soft robots, smart sensors, bionics, etc. Aiming to integrate light, thermal and humidity stimuli deformations and self-healing function into a single polymer, we have designed and successfully synthesized a smart actuating polyurethane material CPPU-50 through co-polymerization of azobenzene-containing Azo-C 12 , polyethylene glycol 200 (PEG200) and 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) at a ratio of 1:1:2. The obtained polyurethane CPPU-50 exhibits good photoinduced bending, thermal responsive shape memory effect, humidity triggered deflections and self-healing properties. Furthermore, an actuator combining light and thermal stimuli was created and the self-healing CPPU-50 film can withstand the object of 1800 times without tearing. This work could pave a way for further development of long-lived multi-stimuli-responsive actuating devices and intelligent materials. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.