Abstract
Supramolecular polymer nanocomposites represent an attractive alternative to traditional polymers for advanced materials that exhibit stimuli-responsive and self-healing properties. Here, we investigate the effects of specific hydrogen bonding interactions between surface functionalized silica nanoparticles and ureidopyrimidinone (UPy) based hydrogen bonded supramolecular poly(ε-caprolactone) in a supramolecular polymer nanocomposite. The effect of varying levels of nanoparticle UPy surface functionalization is considered. In addition to the anticipated improvements in Young's modulus (∼50%) and storage modulus (∼2×) with silica loading, increases in strain at breaking point (∼25%) with silica loading were observed and attributed to particle-matrix hydrogen bonding. However, increasing the extent of UPy surface functionality at a constant nanoparticle loading level led to a marked decrease in storage modulus relative to nanocomposites prepared with as-received silica nanoparticles. TEM investigation of these nanocomposites show an increase in nanoparticle aggregation. Nanoparticle aggregation provides both an explanation for the observed storage modulus reduction and evidence of particle-particle interactions. These results give interesting insight into the competing effects of specific supramolecular interactions in supramolecular polymer nanocomposite materials.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 16686-16696 |
Number of pages | 11 |
Journal | RSC Advances |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 37 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 7 2013 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- General Chemistry
- General Chemical Engineering