Rapid Stiffening of a Microfluidic Endoskeleton via Frontal Polymerization

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• 作者：Ian D. Robertson ; Hector Lopez Hernandez ; Scott R. White ; Jeffrey S. Moore
• 刊名：ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces
• 出版年：2014
• 出版时间：November 12, 2014
• 年：2014
• 卷：6
• 期：21
• 页码：18469-18474
• 全文大小：387K
• ISSN：1944-8252

文摘

Materials capable of rapidly modifying their physical properties in response to stimuli are desirable for on-demand deployment and adaptive engineering structures. Frontal polymerization is a self-propagating reaction that can quickly transform liquid reactants into solid products. In this contribution, we demonstrate that frontal polymerization enables facile, rapid stiffening of a vascular network embedded in a flexible matrix. Systematic variation of the vascular architecture shows that polymerization fronts in a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) matrix are self-propagating in channels as small as 838 渭m and even when curves, branch points and converging geometries are present. After polymerization the composite structure was dramatically stiffened (up to 18 times the original Young鈥檚 modulus) based on tensile testing results. This work demonstrates the use of frontal polymerization as an efficient methodology for transforming flexible materials into functional supports or surfaces through endoskeletal stiffening.

Keywords:

frontal polymerization; microfluidic endoskeleton; rapid stiffening; shape fixing