Laser-triggered shape memory based on thermoplastic and thermoset matrices with silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Stimuli responsive shape memory polymers (SMPs) are challenging theme as the materials not only shows the shape changing under the traditional thermal treatment but also under other external stimuli. The present work proposes an in-situ ring opening polymerization (ROP) to combine the thermoset hard segment, i.e. polybenzoxazine, and thermoplastic soft segment, i.e. polycaprolactone and silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) as the laser-trigger. The melamine-based benzoxazine (mBz) plays its important role in allowing the ROP to create the thermoset polybenzoxazine network (PmBz) as well as providing many hydroxyl groups to further conjugation with thermoplastic polycaprolactone matrices (PCL). The AgNPs are the good alternative to select based on their function to be expressed by the very low energy (violet laser at 408 nm, 780 mW) and the surface modifiable with disulfide polycaprolactone (SS-PCL) hybridization for the highly miscible and readily dispersible in PCL matrices. The present work, for the first time, proposes light-triggered SMPs via simple molecular design and synthesis based on an in-situ ROP to combine PmBz thermoset networks and PCL thermoplastic matrices with the AgNPs-PCL to provide the light-thermal responsive function.