%0 Journal Article
%T Investigations of Self-Healing Property of Chitosan-Reinforced Epoxy Dye Composite Coatings
%A H¨¹sn¨¹g¨¹l Y£¿lmaz Atay
%A Leyla Eral Do£¿an
%A Erdal £¿elik
%J Journal of Materials
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/613717
%X Chitosan has a very wide application range in different parts of life such as in biomedical and antimicrobial areas. In recent years the self-healing property of chitosan becomes more of an issue. In the study chitosan was used to obtain a self-healing composite material. An epoxy dye was converted to a self-healing coating. Different types of samples were prepared by coating the glass substrates with a polymer matrix reinforced with various amounts of chitosan. The samples were characterized by fourier transform Infrared (FTIR) and scanning electron microscope-energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). In addition, self-healing test was applied as a primary objective of this research. In this respect, the samples were scratched with a very thin pin, and they were analyzed by SEM periodically. It was observed that chitosan-reinforced dyes showed self-healing property. Mechanism of the self-healing process was also scrutinized. 1. Introduction A self-healing material is a material that has the built-in ability to partially repair damage occurring during its service life time. Self-healing is the ability of a material to restore mechanical properties, which were earlier perturbed by a plastic deformation or failure involving cracks and voids. Usually, certain properties of any engineering material such as metals, polymers, ceramics, cementitious, and elastomeric and fibre-reinforced composite materials degrade over time due to environmental conditions or fatigue or due to damage incurred during operation. This damage is often on a microscopic scale, requiring periodic inspection and repair to avoid them growing and causing failure [1]. Self-healing materials address this degradation through the inclusion of an ¡°active¡± phase that responds to the microdamage by initiating a repair mechanism, and several mechanisms have been proposed for the engineering materials. Investigation of possible self-healing mechanisms is an important emerging field of nanotechnology [2]. The inspiration of self-healing materials comes from biological systems, which have the ability to heal after being wounded. Initiation of cracks or other types of damage on a microscopic level changed thermal, electrical, and acoustical properties and eventually led to whole scale failure of the material. Usually, cracks cannot be mended by hand because it is hard/difficult to detected. A material that can intrinsically correct damage can lower production costs of a number of different industrial processes, can reduce the inefficiency over time caused by degradation, and can prevent costs
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jma/2013/613717/