Title: Stress relaxation and self-healing in model vitrimers

Speaker:Wouter Ellenbroek, Eindhoven University of Technology

Abstract:

Vitrimers are a novel class of polymeric materials that combine the benefits of the two classic types of polymer solids. While thermoplastics are versatile and recyclable but not very sturdy, and thermosets are strong but hard to process, vitrimers can be made strong and versatile. The key chemical property is a molecular-scale associative bond-swapping mechanism, for which a range of chemistries has been developed over the past years. However, the way in which these bond-swaps affect the mechanical properties of these novel materials is far from clear. In this seminar, I will discuss how to model the effect of vitrimeric bond-swapping in coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of polymer networks. The method allows us to study how the building block architecture affects stress relaxation in these materials, and how there capability for self-adhesion. We uncover a remarkably strong effect of network defects such as localized loops on the stress relaxation, which is a crucial property for the processability of the material, and sketch a path towards stable and autonomously self-healing vitrimers.

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