Mechanoluminescent Imaging of Osmotic Stress-Induced Damage in a Glassy Polymer Network

Jess M Clough; Jasper van der Gucht; Rint P Sijbesma

doi:10.1021/acs.macromol.6b02540

Mechanoluminescent Imaging of Osmotic Stress-Induced Damage in a Glassy Polymer Network

Macromolecules. 2017 Mar 14;50(5):2043-2053. doi: 10.1021/acs.macromol.6b02540. Epub 2017 Mar 2.

Authors

Jess M Clough¹, Jasper van der Gucht², Rint P Sijbesma¹

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry and the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology , P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
² Laboratory of Physical Chemistry and Soft Matter, Agrotechnology and Food Sciences Group, Wageningen University , PO Box 8038, 6700 EK Wageningen, The Netherlands.

Abstract

A chemiluminescent mechanophore, bis(adamantyl-1,2-dioxetane), is used to investigate the covalent bond scission resulting from the sorption of chloroform by glassy poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) networks. Bis(adamantyl)-1,2-dioxetane units incorporated as cross-linkers underwent mechanoluminescent scission, demonstrating that solvent ingress caused covalent bond scission. At higher cross-linking densities, the light emission took the form of hundreds of discrete bursts, widely varying in intensity, with each burst composed of 10⁷-10⁹ photons. Camera imaging indicated a relatively slow propagation of bursts through the material and permitted analysis of the spatial correlation between the discrete bond-breaking events. The implications of these observations for the mechanism of sorption and fracture are discussed.