Highly stretchable and tough elastomers from cyclic polymers
Yang Chen,
Zhiwei Fan,
Yong Liu,
Yiru Wang,
Zeyu Wang,
Rongchun Zhang,
Bingxu Ma,
Yiliu Liu,
Wei Zhang,
Liqun Tang,
Taolin Sun
Affiliations
Yang Chen
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Zhiwei Fan
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yong Liu
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yiru Wang
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Zeyu Wang
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Rongchun Zhang
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Bingxu Ma
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Yiliu Liu
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Wei Zhang
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China
Liqun Tang
Scool of Civil Engineering and Transportation, South China University of Technology, No.381, Wushan Road, Guangzhou 510640, China
Taolin Sun
South China Advanced Institute for Soft Matter Science and Technology, School of Emergent Soft Matter, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Functional and Intelligent Hybrid Materials and Devices, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510640, China; Corresponding author.
Developing solvent-free elastomers with a high stretchability and toughness is crucial for practical applications in flexible electronics and smart actuators. However, the stretchability of chemically crosslinked elastomers derived from linear polymers is often limited due to the trapped entanglements between polymer chains and a lack of energy dissipation mechanism. In this study, we developed a type of soft, highly stretchable, and tough elastomer derived from cyclic polymers by eliminating chain entanglements, and incorporating dynamic hydrogen bonds to provide an energy dissipation mechanism within the network. The non-concatenated cyclic polymers were synthesized through the ring-expansion metathesis polymerization (REMP), and the brush-modification of cyclic polymers clearly confirmed the desired cyclic species through atomic force microscope (AFM) observation. The non-concatenated cyclic polymers were further interconnected to form elastomers using the thiol-ene click reaction. In comparison to elastomers crosslinked from linear polymers with comparable molecular weights, cyclic polymer elastomers exhibit a combination of lower softness (E: 235.1 kPa), higher stretchability (λmax: 16.7) and toughness (We: 8.2 MJ/m3) due to their lower trapped entanglements and higher compact conformations.
