1. A trade-off between hardness and stretchability of associative networks during the sol-to-gel transition.
- Author
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Cao, Xiao, Peng, Li, Huang, Xianbo, and Chen, Quan
- Subjects
HARDNESS ,MATERIALS science ,GELATION ,TEST systems ,VISCOELASTICITY ,POLYMERS ,POLYSTYRENE - Abstract
The trade-off between hardness and stretchability is a cornerstone of materials science. Balancing this trade-off is important in the molecular design of both chemical and physical networks. In this study, we report the quantitative trade-off at the molecular level for physical networks. Namely, we analyze, based on the reversible gelation model, a scaling relationship between the characteristic terminal relaxation modulus G
c in linear viscoelasticity and the stretch ratio λmax at the stress overshoot during the nonlinear elongation flow for unentangled randomly associative polymers, i.e., λmax ∼ Gc −0.17 and λmax ∼ Gc −0.33 in the mean-field and critical-percolation regimes, respectively. We use sulfonated polystyrene having different alkali counterions as a model system to test the relationship. The exponent of λmax ∼ Gc −0.25 seen in the experiment is in between the two theoretical values. We also discuss the quantitative deviation with respect to the size distribution of the network strands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2023
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