For synthetic polymer materials, mechanical forces are typically destructive, leading to bond scission and ultimately macroscopic material failure. In recent years, force-responsive molecules have been designed to respond to macroscopic deformation with a constructive molecular response. We have previously demonstrated the ability to reversibly and repeatably activate a force-responsive colorimetric probe in filled PDMS elastomers with full recovery of the material properties. This poster will focus on using colorimetric probes to characterize force on the molecular level within PDMS elastomers under different loading environments, as well as our efforts towards designing force-responsive catalysts that can be reversibly tuned by material deformation.

Mechanochemistry for stress sensing in PDMS elastomers

252nd National Meeting (2016)

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