Studies on the supramolecular shape memory polyurethane containing pyridine moieties

Fabricating smart materials with supramolecular switch is an attractive research topic. In this study, supramolecular polyurethane networks containing pyridine moieties (PUPys) were synthesized from N,N-bis(2-hydroxylethyl)isonicotinamide (BINA), hexamethylene diisocyanate (HDI), 4, 4-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) and 1,4-butanediol (BDO). A series of studies were carried out to investigate the supramolecular structure, morphology and shape memory properties including of thermal-induced shape memory effect and moisture-sensitive shape memory effect. Results show that hydrogen-bonded supramolecular structure and phase separation morphology are formed in the PUPys. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of soft phase is controlled by the hydrogen bonding while the hard phase grows up from amorphous phase to crystalline phase as the BINA content increases. The addition of MDI-BDO promotes the formation of amorphous hard phase. PUPys have high shape fixity and high shape recovery with the recovery temperature of 45 °C-55 °C. To achieve satisfying shape recovery, 30wt% BINA contents are required. The addition of MDI-BDO improves the shape recovery force. In addition, PUPys have high moisture absorption which increases with the increase of temperature, relative humidity, BINA content as well as the decrease of MDI-BDO content. The final shape recovery decreases with the decrease of BINA content significantly and the strain recovery start time, strain recovery time, strain recovery end time and the time length are also short in the higher BINA content PUPys. Moreover, it is found that the low critical value of BINA unit for PUPys having moisture-sensitive SME is still 30wt%. The addition of MDI-BDO improves the moisture-sensitive shape recovery. Finally, it is proposed that the hydrogen bonding present in the pyridine ring serves as "switch" whereas the formed hard phase via hydrogen bonding present in the urethane groups acts as the physical netpoints for the both thermal-induced SME and moisture-sensitive SME. At the end of this thesis, the potential applications of PUPys like smart windows and reshape applications and the future study are also suggested.