• Tsai, Chiaying
• Liu, Cong
• Ito, Kohzo
• Mayumi, Koichi

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>The mechanical and scratch behaviors of polyrotaxane (PR) modified poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) were investigated. PR is a necklace‐like supramolecule with rings threaded onto a linear backbone chain that is capped by bulky end groups. Cyclodextrin (CD) serves as the ring structure and can be functionalized to induce specific interactions with the hosting polymer matrix. To systematically investigate the effect of CD functionalization on the mechanical properties of PMMA, PR with polycaprolactone (PCL) grafted chains on CD, and PR with methacrylate functional groups at the terminal of the PCL grafted chains on CD were chosen for this study. Tensile and compressive true stress–strain tests, ASTM scratch test, and coefficient of friction measurements were conducted to fundamentally understand how PR influences the mechanical and scratch behaviors of PMMA. Additionally, dielectric relaxation spectroscopy and dynamic mechanical analysis were conducted to explore how PR influences the relaxation dynamics of PMMA. The above findings suggest that the methacrylate functional group on PR induces favorable molecular interactions with PMMA matrix, leading to enhanced molecular cooperativity during deformation, which in turn improves tensile and compressive properties and achieves greatly improved scratch resistance.</jats:p>

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• polymer
• functionalization
• dynamic mechanical analysis
• coefficient of friction