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An ultrahigh fatigue resistant liquid crystal elastomer-based material enabled by liquid metal

具有超高抗疲劳性能的液态金属增强型液晶弹性体材料

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Abstract

The low crosslink density characteristic of liquid crystal elastomer (LCE) materials causes poor fatigue resistance performance, which has seriously plagued their prospects in industrial applications. Here we report that the introduction of 5 wt% liquid metal nanodroplets (average diameter: ca. 195 nm) into the LCE network can dramatically reinforce the corresponding composite’s mechanical properties, in particular ultrahigh fatigue resistance, capable of bearing unprecedented 10,000 tensile cycles within a large range of strain amplitude up to 70% and 2000 times of continuous actuating deformations. Furthermore, this liquid metal-incorporated LCE composite material exhibits large actuation stroke (maximum actuation strain: 55%), high actuation stress (blocking stress: 1.13 MPa), fully reversible thermal/photo-actuation functions, and self-healing ability at moderate temperatures, which qualifies the composite material for high-load actuators.

摘要

液晶弹性体材料内在的低交联密度特性导致其抗疲劳性能差, 严重影响了此类材料在工业上的应用前景. 本文报道了一种液态金属增强型液晶弹性体材料, 通过将5 wt%液态金属纳米微粒(平均直径: 约 195 nm)引入液晶弹性体网络, 可以显著增强液晶弹性体复合材料的力学性能, 特别是超高的抗疲劳性能. 该复合材料能够在大应变范围(应变幅度范围高达70%)内承受10,000次拉伸循环和2000次连续可逆致动形变, 同时展现出大致动应变(最大致动应变: 55%)、 大致动应力 (1.13 MPa)、 完全可逆的热/光驱动性和常温下的自修复功能. 该液态金属增强型液晶弹性体材料有望在高载荷致动器领域实现工业化应用.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21971037).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Advanced Materials, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics, Southeast University, Nanjing, 211189, China

    Hai-Feng Lu  (陆海峰), Zhen-Zhou Nie  (聂振洲), Meng Wang  (王猛), Shuai Huang  (黄帅), Xu-Man Chen  (陈旭漫), Zhi-Yang Liu  (刘志洋) & Hong Yang  (杨洪)

  2. Institute for Science and Applications of Molecular Ferroelectrics, Key Laboratory of the Ministry of Education for Advanced Catalysis Materials, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, 321004, China

    Hai-Feng Lu  (陆海峰)

  3. Advanced Materials and Liquid Crystal Institute and Chemical Physics Interdisciplinary Program, Kent State University, Kent, OH, 44242, USA

    Hari Krishna Bisoyi

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  1. Hai-Feng Lu  (陆海峰)
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  2. Zhen-Zhou Nie  (聂振洲)
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  3. Hari Krishna Bisoyi
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  4. Meng Wang  (王猛)
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  7. Zhi-Yang Liu  (刘志洋)
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  8. Hong Yang  (杨洪)
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Contributions

Yang H designed this project; Lu HF performed all the experiments; Lu HF, Nie ZZ, Bisoyi HK, Wang M, Huang S, Chen XM, Liu ZY and Yang H analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to the general discussion.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hong Yang  (杨洪).

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Supplementary information Experimental details and supporting data are available in the online version of the paper.

Hai-Feng Lu completed his PhD degree under the supervision of Prof. Hong Yang in 2021. After that, he joined Zhejiang Normal University as a lecturer. His research interest includes functional polymeric materials.

Hong Yang is professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at Southeast University. He earned his BS degree in chemistry from Peking University in 2002, and his PhD degree in chemistry from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2007 with Prof. David M Walba. After one year industry work as a research scientist of medicinal chemistry in a Chicago pharmaceutical company, he went back to academia and joined Dr. Patrick Keller’s group at Institut Curie in 2008. Since completing his postdoctoral research in the spring of 2010, he has been a faculty at Southeast University. Currently, his research interests are liquid crystal materials and functional polymeric materials.

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Lu, HF., Nie, ZZ., Bisoyi, H.K. et al. An ultrahigh fatigue resistant liquid crystal elastomer-based material enabled by liquid metal. Sci. China Mater. 65, 1679–1686 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-021-1966-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40843-021-1966-6

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