Superstretchable Dynamic Polymer Networks

Huan Zhang; Yanzhou Wu; Jinxia Yang; Dong Wang; Pengyun Yu; Chi To Lai; An-Chang Shi; Jianping Wang; Shuxun Cui; Junfeng Xiang; Ning Zhao; Jian Xu

doi:10.1002/adma.201904029

Superstretchable Dynamic Polymer Networks

Adv Mater. 2019 Nov;31(44):e1904029. doi: 10.1002/adma.201904029. Epub 2019 Sep 6.

Authors

Huan Zhang^{1

2}, Yanzhou Wu^{2

3}, Jinxia Yang⁴, Dong Wang¹, Pengyun Yu^{2

3}, Chi To Lai⁵, An-Chang Shi⁵, Jianping Wang^{2

3}, Shuxun Cui⁴, Junfeng Xiang^{2

6}, Ning Zhao¹, Jian Xu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
² School of Chemical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, P. R. China.
³ Molecular Reaction Dynamics Laboratory, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Materials (Ministry of Education), Southwest Jiaotong University, Chengdu, 610031, P. R. China.
⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, L8S 4M1, Canada.
⁶ Center for Physicochemical Analysis and Measurement, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, P. R. China.

PMID: 31490600
DOI: 10.1002/adma.201904029

Abstract

Superstretchable materials have many applications in advanced technological fields but are difficult to stretch to more than 1000× their original length. A superstretchable dynamic polymer network that can be stretched to 13 000× its original length is designed. It is revealed that superstretchability of the polymer network is derived from the synergistic effect of two different types of dynamic bonds, including a small number of strong dynamic imine bonds to maintain the network integrity during stretching and a large number of weak ionic hydrogen bonds to dissipate energy. This approach provides new insights into the design of superstretchable polymers.

Keywords: dynamic crosslinks; polymer network; superstretchability.

Abstract

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