(Polym. Chem.) A Room-Temperature Two-Stage Thiol-Ene Photoaddition Approach towards Monodomain Liquid Crystalline Elastomers
writer：Wang, L.; Liu, W.; Guo, L.; Lin, B.; Zhang, X.; Sun, Y.; Yang, H.*
keywords：LCE
source：期刊
specific source：Polymer Chemistry, 2017, 8, 1364-1370.
Issue time：2017年
Monodomain liquid crystalline elastomers (LCEs)
with anisotropic, loosely crosslinked polymeric matrices, have attracted intense scientific attention due
to their widespread applications in stimuli-responsive soft actuators.
However, traditional synthetic pathways towards monodomain LCEs require complicated
procedures, elevated
reaction temperatures, and prolonged
preparation
time
ranging from several hours to even several days.
In this manuscript, we report a fast room-temperature one-pot,
two-stage thiol-ene photoaddition method to synthesize monodomain
polysiloxane-based LCE films. The first stage is a partial thiol-ene photo-crosslinking
of poly(3-mercaptopropylmethylsiloxanes) and vinyl-terminated mesogens and
crosslinkers in solution, the second stage is a complete thiol-ene photo-crosslinking
of the uniaxial-stretched pre-crosslinked LCE film. Starting from mesogenic monomers, the
whole preparation process can be finished in less than 30 minutes, and all the
preparation experiments are performed at room temperature, in the open air.We believe that this facile one-pot, two-stage
thiol-ene photoaddition method can open a new route for fast and robust
productions of monodomain LCE shape memory materials.