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Multi-modal mechanophores based on cinnamate dimers
- Source :
- Nature Communications, Vol 8, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2017), Nature Communications
- Publication Year :
- 2017
- Publisher :
- Nature Portfolio, 2017.
-
Abstract
- Mechanochemistry offers exciting opportunities for molecular-level engineering of stress-responsive properties of polymers. Reactive sites, sometimes called mechanophores, have been reported to increase the material toughness, to make the material mechanochromic or optically healable. Here we show that macrocyclic cinnamate dimers combine these productive stress-responsive modes. The highly thermally stable dimers dissociate on the sub-second timescale when subject to a stretching force of 1–2 nN (depending on isomer). Stretching a polymer of the dimers above this force more than doubles its contour length and increases the strain energy that the chain absorbs before fragmenting by at least 600 kcal per mole of monomer. The dissociation produces a chromophore and dimers are reformed upon irradiation, thus allowing optical healing of mechanically degraded parts of the material. The mechanochemical kinetics, single-chain extensibility, toughness and potentially optical properties of the dissociation products are tunable by synthetic modifications.<br />Mechanochemistry offers exciting opportunities for molecular engineering of stress-responsive properties of polymers. Here the authors show that macrocyclic cinnamate dimers in a polymer chain can undergo dissociation on the sub-second timescale under 1–2 nN stretching to yield a chromophore that then can be optically healed.
- Subjects :
- Toughness
Materials science
Science
Kinetics
General Physics and Astronomy
02 engineering and technology
010402 general chemistry
Photochemistry
01 natural sciences
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
Dissociation (chemistry)
Article
Strain energy
chemistry.chemical_compound
Mechanochemistry
lcsh:Science
chemistry.chemical_classification
Multidisciplinary
General Chemistry
Polymer
Chromophore
021001 nanoscience & nanotechnology
0104 chemical sciences
Monomer
chemistry
lcsh:Q
0210 nano-technology
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 20411723
- Volume :
- 8
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Nature Communications
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....24b0285016aea8178dfe5741fe0d20a2