Xu Jing, Shao Mingchao, Wang Xiaoyue, Chen Tianze, Li Song, Zhang Xinrui, Wang Tingmei, Zhang Yaoming, Yang Zenghui, Wang Qihua
State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China.
Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China.
Adv Mater. 2024 Apr;36(16):e2311992. doi: 10.1002/adma.202311992. Epub 2024 Jan 12.
Advances in modern industrial technology continue to place stricter demands on engineering polymeric materials, but simultaneously possessing superior strength and toughness remains a daunting challenge. Herein, a pioneering flexible cage-reinforced supramolecular elastomer (CSE) is reported that exhibits superb robustness, tear resistance, anti-fatigue, and shape memory properties, achieved by innovatively introducing organic imide cages (OICs) into supramolecular networks. Intriguingly, extremely small amounts of OICs make the elastomer stronger, significantly improving mechanical strength (85.0 MPa; ≈10-fold increase) and toughness (418.4 MJ m; ≈7-fold increase). Significantly, the cooperative effect of gradient hydrogen bonds and OICs is experimentally and theoretically demonstrated as flexible nodes, enabling more robust supramolecular networks. In short, the proposed strengthening strategy of adding flexible cages effectively balances the inherent conflict between material strength and toughness, and the prepared CSEs are anticipated to be served in large-scale devices such as TBMs in the future.
现代工业技术的进步对工程聚合物材料提出了越来越严格的要求，但同时具备卓越的强度和韧性仍然是一项艰巨的挑战。在此，报道了一种开创性的柔性笼状增强超分子弹性体（CSE），它通过将有机酰亚胺笼（OIC）创新性地引入超分子网络，展现出卓越的坚固性、抗撕裂性、抗疲劳性和形状记忆性能。有趣的是，极少量的OIC就能使弹性体更强，显著提高机械强度（85.0兆帕；约增加10倍）和韧性（418.4兆焦/立方米；约增加7倍）。重要的是，梯度氢键和OIC的协同作用在实验和理论上都被证明是作为柔性节点，从而形成更坚固的超分子网络。简而言之，所提出的添加柔性笼的增强策略有效地平衡了材料强度和韧性之间的固有矛盾，预计所制备的CSE未来可应用于诸如隧道掘进机等大型设备中。
