High stiffness polymer composite with tunable transparency

Autor(es):Mostrar menos -

Owuor, Peter Samora ^[1] ; Chaudhary, Varun ^{[2, 3]} ; Woellner, Cristiano F. ^[4] ; Sharma, V. ^[2] ; Ramanujan, R. V. ^[2] ; Stender, Anthony S. ^[1] ; Soto, Matias ^[1] ; Ozden, Sehmus ^[5] ; Barrera, Enrique V. ^[1] ; Vajtai, Robert ^[1] ; Galvao, Douglas S. ^[4] ; Lou, Jun ^[1] ; Tiwary, Chandra Sekhar ^{[1, 6]} ; Ajayan, Pulickel M. ^[1]

Afiliação do(s) autor(es)

^[1] Rice Univ, Dept Mat Sci & NanoEngn, Houston, TX 77005 - USA

^[2] Nanyang Technol Univ, Sch Mat Sci & Engn, Singapore 639798 - Singapore

^[3] Nanyang Technol Univ, Rolls Royce NTU Corp Lab, Singapore 639798 - Singapore

^[4] State Univ Campinas UNICAMP, Appl Phys Dept, BR-13083859 Campinas, SP - Brazil

^[5] Los Alamos Natl Lab, Mat Phys & Applicat Div, Los Alamos, NM 87545 - USA

^[6] Indian Inst Technol Gandhinagar Palaj, Mat Sci & Engn, Gandhinagar 382355, Gujarat - India

• Tipo de documento: Artigo Científico
• Fonte: MATERIALS TODAY; v. 21, n. 5, p. 475-482, JUN 2018.
• Citações Web of Science: 5

Resumo

Biological materials are multifunctional performing more than one function in a perfect synergy. These materials are built from fairly simple and limited components at ambient conditions. Such judicious designs have proven elusive for synthetic materials. Here, we demonstrate a multifunctional phase change (pc) composite from simple building blocks, which exhibits high stiffness and optical transmittance control. We show an increase of more than one order of magnitude in stiffness when we embed paraffin wax spheres into an elastomer matrix, polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in a dynamic compression test. High stiffness is mainly influenced by presence of microcrystals within the wax. We further show fast temperature-controlled optical switching of the composite for an unlimited number of cycles without any noticeable mechanical degradation. Through experimental and finite element method, we show high energy absorption capability of pc-composite. Based on these properties, the pccomposite could be used as an effective coating on glasses for cars and windows. This simple approach to multi-functionality is exciting and could pave way for designs of other multifunctional materials at the macro-scale. (AU)