Photocurable adhesives based on polymers and resins are an integral part of different production processes because of their fast curing and local area bonding ability. Recently, dismantlable adhesives have attracted a lot of attention for recycling adherends or replacement of adhesion defects. However, adhesives that allow repeatable bonding and debonding solely by light irradiation, i.e., without heat activation, are lacking. Here, ABA-type triblock copolymers consisting of poly(meth)acrylates bearing an azobenzene moiety (A block) and 2-ethylhexyl (B block) side chains were synthesized and utilized as photocurable adhesives. In contrast to the azo homopolymers, the block copolymer structure and incorporation of the soft middle block actualized a low concentration of the azobenzene moiety and consequently, higher flexibility of the resultant copolymers. This enabled film formation of the azobenzene-based adhesives and light-induced bonding for the first time. On the basis of the photoisomerization of the azobenzene moiety, changes in their viscoelastic property, i.e., softening and hardening, were induced by UV irradiation at 365 nm (50-100 mW cm-2) and green light irradiation at 520 nm (40 mW cm-2), respectively. In fact, two glass substrates were bonded with the self-standing polymer film, which was sequentially softened and hardened upon UV and green light irradiations. They exhibited shear strengths of 1.5-2.0 MPa, and UV irradiation lowered the adhesion strength to 0.5-0.1 MPa. Interestingly, the repeatable bonding and debonding abilities of the polymers were accomplished without loss of the adhesion strength.
Keywords: adhesives; azobenzene polymers; block copolymers; flexible; photocurable.