Understanding, predicting, and tuning the fragility of vitrimeric polymers.

ABSTRACT: Fragility is an empirical property that describes how abruptly a glass-forming material solidifies upon supercooling. The degree of fragility carries important implications for the functionality and processability of a material, as well as for our fundamental understanding of the glass transition. However, the microstructural properties underlying fragility still remain poorly understood. Here, we explain the microstructure-fragility link in vitrimeric networks, a novel type of high-performance polymers with unique bond-swapping functionality and unusual glass-forming behavior. Our results are gained from coarse-grained computer simulations and first-principles mode-coupling theory (MCT) of star-polymer vitrimers. We first demonstrate that the vitrimer fragility can be tuned over an unprec

SUBMITTER: Ciarella S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6911242 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature