Photopolymerization has taken an increasing prominent role as a tool in providing unique stimuli-responsive characteristics to a wide array of advanced materials. The inherent spatial and temporal control allow great ability to tailor processing conditions and change ultimate properties. Based on work initiated at the University of Southern Mississippi, this presentation will focus on generating nanostructure in organic polymers through photocuring in self-assembling lyotropic liquid crystals (LLC) as polymerization templates to direct polymer morphology. The LLC templating process allows generation of unique kinetic and mechanical properties including stimuli-responsive with faster response and higher stability. The water- and oil-soluble domains inherent in the liquid crystal phase serve as a platform to segregate monomers into ordered geometries based on polarity. The rapid polymerization kinetics of photopolymerization are then utilized to trap and thereby template the LLC structure. Many useful property relationships are observed in the resulting nanostructured polymer systems such as concurrent increases in mechanical strength and swelling as well as increased solute release rates that are not observed in traditional polymer systems. Interestingly, the structure has a profound impact on stimuli-responsive properties of poly(<i>N-</i>isopropylacrylamide) with a two-fold increase in equilibrium water content and over two orders of magnitude decrease in deswelling time without compromising the strength of the material. Additonally, the templates serve as a platform to compatibilize monomers of much different chemistries to form nanophase separated composites. These same principles allow formation of temperature sensitive super absorbent materials that show promise in water remediation and forward osmosis applications.

Stimuli-responsive nanostructured materials through photopolymerization in lyotropic liquid crystal templates

ACS Spring 2022

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