Hydrogen bond cross-linked photo-healable multifunctional phase change materials for thermal management

Abstract

Phase change materials (PCMs) are extensively employed in the realm of electronic device thermal management due to their remarkable ability to absorb heat while maintaining temperature stability. However, the lack of versatility has greatly hindered their applications in flexible wearable electronics and similar fields. Herein, we designed a dynamic, flexible, anti-flaming, ultrafast healable and recyclable supramolecular poly(urethane-urea) phase change material (PUSePCM). The synergistic effects of dynamic hydrogen-bond network and rapid diselenide metathesis endowed a rapid self-healing within 30 s and recycle capability. The PUSePCM could also attach to various metal surfaces and was further used as flexible interface materials in thermal management applications. With the silver microparticles content of ≥30 vol%, the resultant composite can significantly reduce the work temperature of a chip by about 10 °C. This research not only provides a new approach for creating phase-change materials with dynamic, flexible, self-healing, and recyclable performance, but also offers the applications for damage tolerable thermal management interface.