The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Conventional polymer materials are designed with primary considerations on product performance and cost. Entering the new century, the driving force towards future development has increasingly shifted towards more flexible manufacturing, new material functions, and enhanced environmental sustainability. This offers both challenges and opportunities. As a flexible manufacturing technology, 3D printing has undergone explosive growth, but its mainstream use has been hindered by both the mechanical performance and ultimately the resin recyclability. On the material function side, shape memory polymer has shown promise for many high end applications (biomedical and aerospace), but the reliance on external stimulation for its shape shifting has greatly constrained its device potential. With regard to commodity materials, polyurethane and epoxy are major classes of widely used thermosets, their end of life treatment has been a persistent challenge for decades., In this talk, I will show that dynamic polymer networks offer unique opportunities to deal with these challenges with examples including recyclable high performance 3D printing materials, chemical recycling strategies for commodity thermosets (polyurethane and epoxy), and trigger-free shape memory polymer.