Tadpole-like natural phenol endowed polyurethane elastomer with ultra-wide damping temperature range and self-healing properties

Abstract Damping materials play a crucial role in mitigating vibrations and minimizing noise pollution across both military and civilian sectors. However, they often encounter the challenge of damping failure under extreme or variable temperature environments due to the narrow glass transition region. Herein, we proposed an innovative strategy by introducing natural phenol (D-α-tocopherol) into the disulfide-based polyurethane elastomer (PUE), which exhibited ultra-wide effective damping temperature range (–53 ~ 118 ℃), large Tan δ area (77 K) and excellent self-healing properties compared with reported PUE composites. Interestingly, D-α-Tocopherol possesses molecular structure resembling tadpoles with abdominal suckers and flexible tails, which facilitated the formation of intermolecular hydrogen bonds and dangling chains in the PUE. The intermolecular hydrogen bond promoted the phase separation of the soft and hard segments in PUE, thus forming ultra-wide glass transition regions. Meanwhile, the dangling chain effectively increased the free volume between the PUE chains, facilitating the movement of the PUE chain and further accelerating the breaking and recombination of hydrogen and disulfide bonds. The introduction of D-α-Tocopherol increased the energy-loss pathways and significantly enhanced the damping performance of the PUE composites from low to high temperature. This work provides a novel strategy for designing high-performance damping materials.