Banerjee Shib Shankar, Mandal Subhradeep, Arief Injamamul, Layek Rama Kanta, Ghosh Anik Kumar, Yang Ke, Kumar Jayant, Formanek Petr, Fery Andreas, Heinrich Gert, Das Amit
Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e. V, Hohe Straße 6, Dresden 01069, Germany.
Department of Separation ScienceLUT University, Mukkulankatu 19, Lahti FI-15210, Finland.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2021 Apr 7;13(13):15610-15620. doi: 10.1021/acsami.1c00374. Epub 2021 Mar 29.
Functional elastomers with incredible toughness and stretchability are indispensable for applications in soft robotics and wearable electronics. Furthermore, coupled with excellent electrical and thermal properties, these materials are at the forefront of recent efforts toward widespread use in cutting-edge electronics and devices. Herein, we introduce a highly deformable eutectic-GaIn liquid metal alloy-embedded natural rubber (NR) architecture employing, for the first time, industrially viable solid-state mixing and vulcanization. Standard methods of rubber processing and vulcanization allow us to fragment and disperse liquid metals into submicron-sized droplets in cross-linked NR without compromising the elastic properties of the base matrix. In addition to substantial boosts in mechanical (strain at failure of up to ∼650%) and elastic (negligible hysteresis loss) performances, the tearing energy of the composite was enhanced up to 6 times, and a fourfold reduction in the crack growth rate was achieved over a control vulcanizate. Moreover, we demonstrate improved thermal conductivity and dielectric properties for the resulting composites. Therefore, this work provides a facile and scalable pathway to develop liquid metal-embedded soft elastomeric composites that could be instrumental toward potential applications in soft-matter engineering.
具有令人难以置信的韧性和拉伸性的功能弹性体对于软机器人技术和可穿戴电子设备的应用来说不可或缺。此外，这些材料兼具优异的电学和热学性能，处于近期在前沿电子设备中广泛应用的研究努力的前沿。在此，我们首次采用工业上可行的固态混合和硫化工艺，引入了一种高度可变形的共晶镓铟液态金属合金嵌入天然橡胶（NR）结构。标准的橡胶加工和硫化方法使我们能够在不损害基体弹性性能的情况下，将液态金属破碎并分散成亚微米级液滴于交联的NR中。除了机械性能（高达约650%的断裂应变）和弹性性能（可忽略的滞后损耗）大幅提升外，复合材料的撕裂能提高了6倍，与对照硫化胶相比，裂纹扩展速率降低了四倍。此外，我们还展示了所得复合材料改善的热导率和介电性能。因此，这项工作为开发液态金属嵌入的软弹性体复合材料提供了一条简便且可扩展的途径，这对于软物质工程中的潜在应用可能具有重要意义。
