Photopatterning of two stage reactive polymer networks with CO2-philic thiol-acrylate chemistry: enhanced mechanical toughness and CO2/N2 selectivity

Adrienne K. Blevins, Mengyuan Wang, Michelle L. Lehmann, Leiqing Hu, Shouhong Fan, Christopher M. Stafford, Jason P. Killgore, Haiqing Lin, Tomonori Saito, Yifu Ding

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

2 Scopus citations

Abstract

Two stage reactive polymer (TSRP) networks can be programmed with spatially varying heterogeneity, presenting a new way of designing material structure and controlling or enhancing properties. The formulation framework is versatile and can be applied to many different monomers to achieve desired performance. Such versatility is demonstrated here by designing a novel TSRP formulation that includes poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) and polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) groups to enhance gas permeability compared to previous thiol-acrylate TSRP formulations where permeability of certain gasses was too low to accurately measure. With this higher permeability, the effects of patterned heterogeneity on CO2/N2 selectivity were studied. A TSRP with 24% to 34% by weight PEO and PDMS groups, patterned with 50 μm circles of lower crosslinking density, is found to outperform the rule of mixtures prediction between permeability and selectivity for unpatterned materials. Comparing patterned films to stage 2 films shows an increase in permeability by up to 98% and an increase in selectivity by up to 67%. Patterned films also show improved mechanical toughness (up to 46% improvement) that previously studied TSRPs have. The material system presented in this study demonstrates a highly customizable approach for simultaneously improving permselective performance along with mechanical properties.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)2495-2505
Number of pages11
JournalPolymer Chemistry
Volume13
Issue number17
DOIs
StatePublished - Apr 5 2022

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge research support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Membrane Science, Engineering and Technology (MAST) at the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB, award number, IIP 1624602). Acknowledgement is made to the Donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund for partial support of this research. The stage 1 film synthesis and design work is supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. AB acknowledges the support from GAANN fellowship for Soft Matter and also thanks Tayler Hebner for the FTIR measurements, as well as Chamaal Karunaweera for access to data collection resources.

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