In nature, organic-inorganic hybrid structures such as nacre (“mother-of-pearl”) are remarkably tough, light, and transparent due to their highly ordered structure at the nanometer-to-micron scale. In this work, efforts to create highly ordered vitrimer-MXene composites are detailed. Vitrimers are a class of organic polymers with permanent yet dynamic polymer networks that ideally behave like conventional thermosets at service temperatures yet are re-processable like thermoplastics at higher temperatures. MXenes are a class of inorganic two-dimensional (2D) transition metal carbides and nitrides which exhibit metallic conductivity, excellent transparency in the visible wavelengths, and high photon-to-phonon conversion efficiency. Utilizing hot-press techniques, vitrimer films with a thickness of 10-100s of microns are obtained. Following this, ultra-thin film of MXene (single to a few layers) are deposited onto the vitrimer surface using an advanced deposition technique which leverages Rayleigh-Benard convection and the Maragoni effect.<br/><br/>Surface morphology and optical, thermal, and electrical properties for the vitrimer film coated with MXene are evaluated. From these films, a sandwich composite structure composed of alternating vitrimer-MXene layers is fabricated through hot-pressing. These composites are subsequently evaluated by thermomechanical techniques to observe changes to mechanical properties (i.e., modulus, creep resistance, toughness). Utilization of light as a stimulus to heal the vitrimer-MXene composites is also demonstrated.

Hierarchical architecture of vitrimer-MXene layers for improved composite functionality

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