Laboratory of Smart Materials

Scientific results:

1. The objective of the project is to create a universal multi-scale model of healing that includes processes of healing of cracks at various scales and therefore can be widely used to heal microcracks and scratches and for large-scale damage. 
2. The program of the project was compiled in a way that allows to achieve the most progress and to materialize the main idea of the project using the example of  a model system. As the understanding of the key details of the mechanism of self-healing expands, new systems are designed that will be able to «implement» the main mechanism of self-healing in the form of a combination of the effects of shape memory, the formation of  ordered regions and ionomer clusters.
3. Using a complex of physical and mathematical methods and computer modeling, we researched the mechanisms of multi-scale healing of damage on the surface of polymer coatings. We have demonstrated the effect of various driving forces in the process of self-healing, «constructed» polymer compositions that demonstrate the self-healing effect  under the influence of moderate heating. We have conducted a comparison of autonomous and non-autonomous healing and a comparison of the efficiency of self-healing in different strategies of supplying energy to the system. We studied the selectivity of adhesion/cohesion to the damage site (which distinguishes a self-healing material from common glue). It has been shown that this task can be solved, among other options, by encapsulating the active compounds that locally reduces the temperature of vitrification and melting.
4. The discovered mechanisms allowed to start transferring the discovered approaches to polymer systems of other chemical nature, which proves the fundamental character of these solutions. This emphasizes the significance of the studied approach, whose essence is that on the basis of the discovered mechanisms of the creation of a system of mutually penetrating meshes, at least one of which is reversible, it is possible to implement a whole family of self-healing materials. Taking into consideration the fact that as a model we chose the Surlyn — EPDM polymer system which is in almost unlimited supply, the problem of implementing our solutions in practice will be much less challenging. 

Education and career development:

• 6 Candidate of Sciences and one Doctor of Sciences dissertations have been  prepared and defended.
• During the implementation of the project, employees of the Laboratory developed two lecture courses. Three internships have been organized for postgraduates at the laboratory of the leading scientists at RWTH Aachen University and DWI —  Leibniz-Institute for Interactive Materials (Aachen, Germany).

Members of the academic team organized conferences:

• 14^th Andrianov conference and 2^nd school and conference «Silicon-organic compounds. Synthesis, properties, applications», June 3 – 6, 2018.
• 7^th Bakeyev all-Russian conference with international participation «Macromolecular nanoobjects and polymer nanocomposites», October 7 – 12, 2018.
• Open competition and conference of research works in the chemistry of element-organic compounds and polymers «INEOS OPEN CUP», November 19 – 21, 2018.
• Open competition and conference of research works in the chemistry of element-organic compound and polymers «INEOS OPEN CUP»,  December 16 – 19, 2019.
• 8^th Bakeyev conference «Macromolecular nanoobjects and polymer nanocomposites», December 21 – 22, 2020.
• Open competition and conference of research works in the chemistry of element-organic compound and polymers «INEOS OPEN CUP», May 17 – 20, 2021.
• School and conference for young scientists «Non-chlorine chemistry of silicons» (with international participation), December 1 – 3, 2021.
• 15^th Andrianov conference and 2^nd school and conference for young scientists  «Non-chlorine chemistry of silicons», October 31  – November 2. 2022.

• Laboratory of Synthesis of Organoelement Polymers, Institute of Synthetic Polymeric Materials of the Russian Academy of Sciences: joint research, joint academic events.
• DWI —  Leibniz-Institute for Interactive Materials, Aachen, Germany: internships of employees of the Laboratory, joint research.
• Laboratory of Polymer Materials of the Department of Nanobiomaterials and Structures of Kurchatov Complex of NBICS Nature-Like Technologies, Kurchatov Institute: joint research.
• Laboratory of Physics of New Smart Polymer Materials, Faculty of Physics, Moscow State University: joint research.