New Chain Extenders for Self-Healing Polymers

We present here a small series of compounds designed to modify the polymer chain of various polyurethanes in order to introduce a structural fragment with the ability of thermally-triggered reversible covalent interactions. Bismaleimides (2a-2e) were synthesized from commercially available aromatic and aliphatic symmetric diamines (1a-1e) and were further introduced into the Diels-Alder reaction with furfuryl alcohol as dienophiles. The Diels-Alder adducts (3a-3e) were obtained as a mixture of endo- and exo-isomer. The presence of symmetrical hydroxyl groups in the structure of the obtained compounds makes them suitable as chain extenders of low molecular weight diisocyanate prepolymers. The presence of a thermally reversible Diels-Alder reaction adduct in the structure of potential chain-extenders opens a possibility to create unique materials with self-healing properties. All compounds obtained were characterized by 1H, 13C NMR, ESI-HRMS, and IR spectroscopy. The thermochemical parameters of the reverse Diels-Alder reaction were established using DSC analysis.