Dynamic chemistry is characterized by the ability of a bond or adduct to break or reform either autonomously or in response to stimuli, and “click” chemistry refers to a subset of one-pot, water and oxygen resistant, high-yield reactions.1,2 Herein, we use principles from both such chemistries to develop a synthesis and use RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer) polymerization to control the architecture of a polymer system. Dynamic, non-covalent (UPyMA) units and dynamic, covalent (FMA) units are incorporated into the backbone. Variation is made across crosslink density and chainlength so as to assess the system’s functionality at different compositions. Rheological and tensile data show the polymer has good thermally responsive self-healing properties and excellent stress relaxation characteristics.
Author: Jafer R. Vakil
Faculty Advisors: Dominik Konkolewicz and Borui Zhang, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry; Jessica Sparks, Department of Chemical, Paper and Biomedical Engineering
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