Highly Impact-Resistant Block Polymer-Based Thermoplastic Elastomers with an Ionically Functionalized Rubber Phase

Takato Kajita; Atsushi Noro; Ryoji Oda; Sadaharu Hashimoto

doi:10.1021/acsomega.1c05609

Highly Impact-Resistant Block Polymer-Based Thermoplastic Elastomers with an Ionically Functionalized Rubber Phase

ACS Omega. 2021 Dec 20;7(3):2821-2830. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.1c05609. eCollection 2022 Jan 25.

Authors

Takato Kajita¹, Atsushi Noro^{1

2}, Ryoji Oda³, Sadaharu Hashimoto³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular & Macromolecular Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8603, Japan.
² Institute of Materials Innovation, Institutes of Innovation for Future Society, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Japan.
³ Zeon Corporation, 1-6-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8246, Japan.

Abstract

There has been a great deal of interest in incorporating noncovalent bonding groups into elastomers to achieve high strength. However, the impact resistance of such elastomers has not been evaluated, even though it is a crucial mechanical property in practical usage, partly because a large-scale synthetic scheme has not been established. By ionizing the rubber component in polystyrene-b-polyisoprene-b-polystyrene (SIS), we prepared several tens of grams of SIS-based elastomers with an ionically functionalized rubber phase and a sodium cation (i-SIS(Na)) or a bulky barium cation (i-SIS(Ba)). The i-SIS(Na) and i-SIS(Ba) exhibited very high tensile toughness of 520 and 280 MJ m^-3, respectively. They also exhibited excellent compressive resistance. Moreover, i-SIS(Ba) was demonstrated to have a higher impact resistance, that is, more protective of a material being covered compared to covering by typical high-strength glass fiber-reinforced plastic. As such elastomers can be produced at an industrial scale, they have great market potential as next-generation elastomeric materials.