Bio-inspired materials design is an important strategy used in the fabrication of tunable and mechanically-enhanced polymeric systems.  Utilizing concepts from nature, namely hierarchical organization, we have designed a family of polyurethane/ureas that contain peptidic ordering in the soft domain as an approach to tune mechanical properties.  Thermal and morphological analysis confirmed a microphase-separate PUU morphology, which is key to achieving enhanced mechanical properties, as well as as a�-sheet secondary structure within the peptide-containing soft domain.  Dynamic mechanical analysis revealed an order of magnitude increase in the tensile storage modulus of the peptidic polyurethane/ureas at room temperature.  Astress-strain experiments Although the extensibility was reduced in the bio-inspired PUUs, the initial modulus was increased by more than a factor of 3.   We expect this research will be applicable in materials and biomaterials development due to the simplicity of the synthesis and the promising mechanical tunability brought about by the peptide segment.

Bio-inspired, hierarchically-ordered peptidic polyurethane/ureas

244th National Meeting (2012)

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