A conductive rubber with self-healing ability enabled by metal-ligand coordination

At present, flexible conductive materials have been widely noticed. However, developing electronic materials with both good mechanical and electrical self-healing abilities remains both a great challenge and an exciting goal. Herein, we prepared a commercial nitrile butadiene rubber (NBR) with electrical healing capability based on constructing Fe(III) coordination and CNT networks. With 3 phr (parts per hundreds of rubber) CNT, the tensile strength and the elongation at break of rubber composite reached 1.1 MPa and 300%, respectively. After healing at 80 degrees C for 9 hours, the recovery efficiency of rubber composite achieved 90%. After adding 5 phr CNT, the conductivity can reach 0.077 S/m, and the electrical conductivity was 0.076 S/m after self-healing. Such material can maintain resistance change within 5 times at high strain (100%), so it is applicable in the field of strain sensor.