Du, E., Li, M., Xu, B., Zhang, Y., Li, Z., Yu, X., Fan, X. (2024). Self-Healing and Adhesive Supersoft Materials Derived from Dynamically Cross-Linked Bottlebrush Polymers for Flexible Sensors. Macromolecules, 57(2), 672–681. https://
doi.org/10.1021/acs.macromol.3c02006
Abstract:
Multifunctional bottlebrush polymer super-soft materials are highly desirable for the development of next-generation flexible electronic devices. Herein, we report a facile strategy for the fabrication of bottlebrush polymer super-soft materials integrated with self-healing and adhesive functionalities. These are achieved by the first fabrication of the bottlebrush poly(n-butyl acrylate) (PnBA) via combining ATRP with ROMP and subsequent formation of dynamically cross-linked networks via “click” thiol-bromo reaction between Br end groups of PnBA side chains and dithiol-containing boronic ester (BDB) crosslinker. Owing to the unique architecture and the reversible boron ester bonds, the unique bottlebrush architecture and fast bond-reforming kinetics of boron ester bonds impart the resultant materials with super-softness with a shear modulus as low as 5 kPa and high self-healing efficiency over 90%. Moreover, owing to the extremely low glass transition temperature of PnBA segments, they also display strong adhesiveness to many substrates. The as-prepared strain sensors show an excellent ability to detect a large range of strains from ultralow strain of 0.1% to large strain of 100%. This work has provided a facile and promising approach to the development of multifunctional super-soft materials, which hold great potential as functional sensors for flexible electronics.
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Funding Info:
This research / project is supported by the A*STAR - MTC programmatic
Grant Reference no. : M22K9b0049
This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China.