Fig. 2: Growth of the living siloxane elastomers.
From: Reversibly growing crosslinked polymers with programmable sizes and properties
a Experimental and theoretical time-dependent weight of living and deactivated samples immersed in the monomer and crosslinker mixture solution. Hexane solution containing 1 wt% triethylamine was used to quench the acid-catalyzed reactions and wash out the unreacted monomer and crosslinker. The solid square and circle labels show the weights after washing. b Experimental and theoretical growth index of grown products under different conditions. The samples were immersed in the monomer and crosslinker mixture solution for 10 h and then stored in sealed bottles to allow the polymerization and homogenization to progress at different times, followed by hexane washing. A full growth cycle included 10 h immersion and 90 h storage. Growth index: Wgrown/Woriginal. c Regeneration of the living samples. A cubic sample (first generation parent, P1) was cut to yield a smaller cubic piece which was grown into a sample (P2) with the same size and shape as P1. The P2 was then used as the second generation parent to regenerate the generation II sample (P3). d Young’s modulus and growth index of grown products obtained from solutions with different crosslinker concentrations. The mixture solution in a–c contained 2 wt% triD4. The data in b and d were obtained from eight independent measurements. Error bars are standard errors of the mean (s.e.m.).
