The Polymer Society of Korea

황주희 (한양대학교)

장영욱 (한양대학교)

Vitrimers have emerged as a new class of thermoset material that possess thermoplastic-like reprocessability through dynamic covalent bond exchange within the network. This work demonstrated that PCL vitrimers featuring dynamic disulfide bonds can be prepared by chemical crosslinking a mixture of hydroxy-terminated PCL-g-polydopamine(PDA), synthesized by in-situ ROP of caprolactone in the presence of PDA, and a proper amount of hydroxyethyldisulfide (HEDS) using a diisocyanate as a crosslinker. The resulting PCL vitrimer showed excellent reprocessability owing to disulfide exchange reaction throughout the network under thermal activation.  Phtothermal effect of the PDA domain in the vitrimer enabled the material to exhibit shape memory effect under near IR irradiation. Such biobased PCL vitrimers with light-triggered shape memory effects are expected to have potential biomedical applications.