Preparation of smart coatings with self-healing and anti-wear properties

During the study, an innovative method has been developed to synthesise Polyurea (PU) microcapsules containing inorganic porous fly ash absorbing linseed oil (FA-oil) as core materials by interfacial polymerisation to enhance the mechanical property of the microcapsules, thereby preparing the smart self-healing coatings with wear resistance properties.

Compared with the coatings embedded PU-linseed oil microcapsules without fly ash, the wear loss of the smart coatings embedded PU-FA-oil microcapsules was 2.4 mg/8 h, which was 61.5 times lower than the former. Moreover, it was 161.7 times lower than pure epoxy coatings without any microcapsules in anti-wear test.

The results showed the addition of PU-FA-oil microcapsules significantly improved the wear resistance of the smart coatings. This main reason was that the inorganic porous fly ash had the characteristics of high hardness, super wear resistance, and the slow-release effect of FA-oil in friction.