EoS Excellence of Science project to Anne-Sophie Duwez and Françoise Remacle

EoS Excellence of Science project to Anne-Sophie Duwez and Françoise Remacle

Anne-Sophie Duwez and Françoise Remacle participate in the EoS project Keeping the best of weak bonds by tethering: a multi-scale, multi-technique approach to polymeric materials with controlled and predictable mechanical properties, coordinated by UCLouvain.

For many years, polymers were built exclusively from strong bonds. Nowadays, inspired by Nature, scientists have realized the importance of weak bonds, which are reversible and introduce dynamic behaviors into otherwise static systems. Incorporating such bonds into polymeric materials give them appealing properties such as self-healing, stimuli responsiveness, ability to resist fracture, facilitated recycling. However, it also introduces important drawbacks such as lower mechanical strength or permanent deformation under stress, so that compromises had to be made for more than two decades. To solve this issue, we propose in this EoS project to develop materials containing weak bonds while suppressing the major drawbacks. The central concept is the use of tethered weak bonds: bonds in which the components stay in close proximity after bond rupture thanks to a molecular tether linking them. To progress significantly beyond the current state of the art and gain a global understanding, we will study the materials across all length-scales, from the single molecule level to the macroscopic level, and all time-scales, and will investigate both the rupture of bonds and their reformation. The obtained results will allow the development of a predictive model linking material structure and mechanical properties that will be valuable for the future development of weak bond-based materials showing enhanced properties.