Satellites placed in orbit around the Earth are subjected to extreme conditions, mainly due to exposure to charged particles and UV radiation, that have an impact on their life and performances. It is interesting to improve the materials durability in space environment by the design of innovative polymers for instance. For this purpose, new polymer materials based on poly(dimethylsiloxane) (PDMS) are synthesized in this work in order to endow PDMS with self-healing properties to limit their degradation in geostationary orbit. The ultimate goal of the project is to design a transparent coating resistant to the space environment conditions.

To achieve this, the imine chemistry is of particular interest as it is simple and effective without using catalysts. The PDMS materials developed in this work are composed of a fourth-generation intrinsic self-healing system combining a dynamic covalent network via imine bonds with another supramolecular, dynamic covalent or permanent network.

One advantage of these new materials lies their chemical structure containing a limited number of unsaturations to limit the presence of chromophores that are sensitive to UV rays and visible light and accelerate the formation of free radicals and the material degradation. To achieve this, aliphatic aldehydes were developed by chemically modifying commercial PDMS. The results are currently focusing on the preparation of materials, followed by the characterization of their thermomechanical, optical and self-healing properties, as well as their resistance to proton irradiations.