Covalent Adaptable Network Materials

• Taras Nagornyy, ,

• Christopher Kloxin, Chemical Engineering, University of Delaware

Covalent Adaptable Networks (CANs) have emerged as a compelling and relatively new topic within the realm of polymer and material science. Initially introduced by Bowman and his research group in 2010, the concept of CANs has already captured considerable attention. Positioned as a novel class of materials, CANs represent an intriguing intermediate between thermosets and thermoplastics, offering a unique set of properties and capabilities.

As an REU student from UMass Amherst, this summer I was working on synthesis of covalent adaptable network polymer and testing its chemical and mechanical properties. The polymerization was based on the radical initiated reaction between methacrylates. HEMA (Hydroxyethylmethacrylate) and BisGMA (bisphenol A-glycidyl methacrylate) were used as monomers. To trigger the polymerization reaction “Irgacure 651” was used as a UV radical initiator. To launch the transesterification reaction Imidazole was used as a catalyst.

A few rheometric test were performed in order to test the mechanical properties of prepared CANs films and compare how they change relatively to different compositions of monomers, catalysts, and initiators: TempRamp, Strain-Sweep, and Stress-Relaxation Experiments.

Besides rheology experiments I did an experiment to explore the kinetics of a given methacrylate polymerization reaction. In out lab we had an FT-IR instrument with locally modified UV-lamp, so the UV-radical polymerization can be tracked in-situ.