Controllable Preparation\nof High-Performance Amine-Terminated\nPolybutadiene-Based Polyurea: Structure and Properties

Polyurea elastomers with excellent mechanical properties\nare widely\nused in a variety of applications due to the unique microphase separation\nstructure and high flexibility in formulations. A key point in the\ndevelopment of polyurea elastomers is to explore the structure–property\nrelationship. However, few studies have focused on the effect of soft\nsegment structures because of the limitation that the flexible soft\nsegments are usually commercialized amine-terminated polyether. Herein,\na series of polybutadiene-based polyurea elastomers were prepared\nto systematically investigate the influence of the network structures\non the ultimate properties of the polyurea materials. In particular,\nthe amine-terminated liquid polybutadiene rubber with tunable molecular\nweights and liquid polystyrene–butadiene rubber were synthesized\nvia the degradation method for flexible regulation of the soft segment\nstructure. The results demonstrated that performance optimization\ncould be achieved by manipulating the degree of hydrogen bonding,\nwhich was controlled by the network structure. Besides, the polybutadiene-based\npolyurea elastomers exhibited excellent low-temperature properties,\nowing to the high cis-1,4 content.