New soft functional materials based on the central concept of double dynamics, cooperated with other partners, will be designed with targeted key properties: easy to process and recycle, resist flow and creep as well as dissipate energy to resist fracture, etc. The material systems are represented in the figures below: (a) Double Dynamic Networks(DDNs) relies on a combination of metal-ligand interactions, phase separation and entanglements. (b) Double Dynamics slide-ring gels. The objective of my research work is to understand and modelling the linear dynamics of these DDNs, so as to deepen and broaden the molecular understanding of the soft materials, towards a better exploitation of their huge potential, which will benefit designing of novel materials for application.
(a) The two single network will be studied respectively, and modelling of single network will be extended to DDNs, which is based on Tube model for describing the linear viscoelasticity (LVE) of DDNs. The main characteristics (composition and architecture of the building blocks, entanglement, type of interactions between the sub-networks, and lifetime of the interactions, etc) will be systematically varied to understand their influence on DDNs structure and dynamics.
(b) Modelling the LVE of slide-ring networks: Due to the specific mobility of crosslinks, the behavior of slide-ring DDNs cannot be modelled as the other DDNs. We will account for ring sliding and the fact that chains cannot escape from the rings due to the bulky end-groups. The interactions between the slide-ring networks and the supramolecular network will be taken into account through Constraint-Release-Rouse processes.
(c) In order to modelling the viscoelastic behavior of these DDNs, I will start from the tube model to study the viscoelastic properties of telechelic supramolecular entangled polymers governed by two different supramolecular dynamics (fast and slow), as shown in the figure (c). At the same time, a model to describe the dynamics of linear entangled sticky chains will be developed, which includes the sticker’s dynamics in the modelling.
