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Minisymposium Presentation
Atomistic Understanding of the Mechanical Behaviors of Polyamide Ionene Self-Healing Elastomers
Presenter
Jihong Ma is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Graduate Program of Materials Science at the University of Vermont, USA. Dr. Ma obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities (USA) in 2017, and her B.Eng. in Engineering Mechanics from Xi'an Jiaotong University (China) in 2012. Her Ph.D. thesis focused on computational heat transport in nanomaterials. She then worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, studying topological metamaterials from 2017 to 2019, and at Oak Ridge National Laboratory - Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences on soft matter simulations from 2019-2020. Dr. Ma's current research interests broadly lie in the structure-property relationship of materials at multiple scales (from nano- to macro-) via a combination of theoretical analysis, numerical simulations, and experimental characterizations. Her current active research projects include investigations of self-healing polymers, polymeric membranes for carbon capture, organic electronics, quantum dots, dynamics of phononic crystals, and nanoscale thermal and electrical transport funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, NASA, Air Force Research Laboratory, and the Semiconductor Research Corporation.
Description
Intrinsic self-healing (SH) polymers can repeatedly heal themselves from mechanical damage by reorganizing their polymer matrices without adding healing reagents. Therefore, they have drawn significant attention to developing sustainable SH soft materials. Recent studies have shown that ion-containing polymers can better harness SH features due to the additional strength of ionic interactions between chains. In this work, we are mainly interested in supramolecular dynamic chemistry, i.e., non-covalent bonding dynamics, as they can repeatedly heal local damage. Although each non-covalent bond is weaker than its covalent counterparts, together, they can form strong polymer network systems and thus achieve high mechanical strength. Particularly, we are interested in the roles of hydrogen bonding and ionic interaction since they are both dynamic and subject to change upon external stimuli, such as heat or UV light. We will discuss how they affect the structural conformation and thermomechanical properties, as well as their competition with ionic interactions.This work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy (DE-SC0023473) and the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF Grant No. 2132055).