Strong and crack-tolerant elastomers via geometrically confined H-bonding semicarbazides
The development of high-performance elastomers that are simultaneously
strong, crack-tolerant, and wear-resistant remains a persistent challenge.
Herein, we design bio-inspired semicarbazide chain extender featuring highdensity
hydrogen-bonding sites to synthesize poly(urethane-urea) (PUU). The
use of two such extenders creates geometric confinement that promotes
ordered H-bonding arrays, which synergistically enhances the mechanical
performance. The resulting PUU-HI elastomer exhibits a nanoscale-ordered
phase-separated structure and maximized H-bonding, achieving a tensile
strength of 120.2MPa, toughness of 400.5 MJ m?3 and true fracture stress of
1.3 GPa, even surpassing spider silk. The architecture additionally delivers high
crack tolerance, fatigue resistance, and high wear resistance, making it ideal
for stable, long-term used triboelectric nanogenerator interfaces. Solid-state
NMR reveals the geometric-confinement-induced ordered and high-density Hbonding
structure in hard domain for efficient energy dissipation. By designing
tailored H-bonding motifs and amplifying supramolecular interactions via
geometric confinement, this work offers a promising strategy for developing
mechanically robust and durable elastomers.