N1005 IBM Research: polymer

Novel nanocomposites made of confined polymers

<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Tms Rmn";">IBM researchers, with collaborators at Stanford University, have combined their expertise in porous materials for microprocessors and thin film mechanical properties to study the fundamental properties of polymers under confinement. <br /><br />Their challenge was to fill tiny holes called nanopores (1/10,000 the size of a human hair) with long and bulky molecules. The equivalent of fitting a 300 passenger commercial plane into your car garage. While the latter is physically impossible, polymers can deform to adapt to such a significant form factor change. During this process, their intrinsic properties are dramatically modified – which is precisely what our researchers were looking for. But the results weren’t what they expected.</span><br /><a name="more"></a><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-isunBLdilvMaAkLi0tLRT6GOLzkr1RTXsGq9z8aZidBPDqU103w8X1gGYqKMaWm9Zi6eGaQIr0Wi6QkKrCPvUZ7y5aBGAq9g3VsN3625Coo013VWXTKCZI2wO9EHjyJd-_Wq9uxbmb4/s1600/Hybrid-nanocomposites_web1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK-isunBLdilvMaAkLi0tLRT6GOLzkr1RTXsGq9z8aZidBPDqU103w8X1gGYqKMaWm9Zi6eGaQIr0Wi6QkKrCPvUZ7y5aBGAq9g3VsN3625Coo013VWXTKCZI2wO9EHjyJd-_Wq9uxbmb4/s400/Hybrid-nanocomposites_web1.jpg" width="282" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Hybrid nanocomposite art</span><br /><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">by students at Stanford University</span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Tms Rmn";">In their normal state (not confined), polymers' mechanical properties mainly depend upon the number of entanglements (i.e, the number of knots). When you pull on one chain, you pull on many knots such that a tremendous amount of energy has to be dissipated before reaching a breaking point. This is what give polymers their physical strength: from your plastic cup to your suitcase.<br /><br />Think about trying to pull one noodle from a full plate of cooked pasta. It is almost impossible to pull only one from the bunch. But if you could force all the noodles into a tiny espresso cup, the knots would magically disappear because it is the only way for the entangled pasta to accommodate such a small space. Similarly in polymer physics, polymers' mechanical properties such as resistance to fracture, decrease under confinement due to the loss of entanglements. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Tms Rmn";">For the resulting nanocomposite materials, it was then predicted that their mechanical properties would follow the same trend. Surprisingly, the exact opposite is what IBM and Stanford researchers uncovered. The polymers’ resistance to fracture increased with decreasing entanglements. The results showed that five times more energy was required to break these nanocomposites as initially anticipated. </span></div><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Tms Rmn"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br />The discovery has significant implications for the microelectronic industry as microprocessors continue to shrink, and porous materials are widely used in devices such as smartphones, and tablets due to their prominent insulating properties. Its increased strength could help prevent mechanical failures of the next generation of microprocessors when more porous materials, better insulators but more fragile materials, are manufactured. This strategy is currently under development at our Albany research and development center for advanced microelectronics.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Tms Rmn"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Read more<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;"> about th<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">is break<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">through in the <i>Nature Materials</i> art<span style="font-family: "helvneue light for ibm" , sans-serif;">icle <a href="http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4475.html" target="_blank">Fundamental limits of material toughening in molecularly confined polymers</a>.</span> </span></span></span></span><br /><br /><br />

IBM researchers, with collaborators at Stanford University, have combined their expertise in porous materials for microprocessors and thin f...

Discovered: high-temperature remoldable gels

12:33 PM N1000 0

<br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/383/19533417940_735eee8876_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/383/19533417940_735eee8876_n.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mareva Fevre, IBM Research-Almaden</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">by Mareva Fevre, research post-doc at IBM Research-Almaden</span></i><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">My team at IBM’s research lab in the Silicon Valley just discovered a new class of “self-healing” organogels that have unique recyclable properties – they are the first class of chemically-crosslinked gels that can be cooled to a solid, but then re-heated back to a liquid state. Imagine filling a mold with this liquid material, cooling it and discovering there was a mistake – with this material and its dynamic properties, we can start over until we get the desired shape, and then cure it to a permanent, hardened object. We describe how this process works in the paper, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.201502033/full">Melt-Processable Dynamic-Covalent Poly(Hemiaminal) Organogels as Scaffolds for UV-Induced Polymerization</a>, published in the journal, <i>Advanced Materials</i>.</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"></span></b><br /><a name="more"></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;"> </span></b><br /><br /><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Times;">What is a gel?</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Gels are a peculiar family of materials. They exhibit properties between solids and liquids, and are composed of long polymer chains which link together and can trap some other smaller molecules. They are like a tiny (think nanoscale) fishing net that can retain liquids. The small molecules, which are trapped in the organogels that we developed, are monomers (the initial molecules which are used to prepare polymers). </span> <span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">In our experiment, we also added some molecules called initiators in the gels, which under UV light transform the monomers into polymers. Thus, our gels have unique properties that allow them to behave at first like jello but after UV exposure become hard like plastic.</span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/549/19081335064_69af4f6d53.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/549/19081335064_69af4f6d53.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif;">The elasticity of our organogel on display</span></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">After dozens of tests to measure the strength of the gels and figuring out the right compositions to obtain these properties, we created a modified gel that could melt at higher temperatures (80C) but recover its gel-like behavior when cooled down to 20C. The result is the first type of gel that could be molded, unmolded, and remolded several times before reaching that perfect final shape fixed by UV exposure</span><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">. </span></div><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Think of our gels like caulk used to repair cracks in objects, but liquid enough to penetrate into small cracks, and solid enough not to leak. A subsequent UV-curing step would allow for the material filling the crack to solidify and for the object to recover properties close to its original shape and strength. In the future, those gels could be used as a material for 3D-printing. If you think about today’s 3D-printing process, it requires layers of polymers stacked on top of each other. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;">This leads to imperfect shapes that can have weakly bonded interfaces between its layers. Our new “self-healing” materials are not only fluid enough to be printed but also solid enough to hold their shape. By precisely controlling the printing temperature, we could ultimately get rid of the layers’ interface problem.</span><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/546/19081338644_5eb2174bd3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://farm1.staticflickr.com/546/19081338644_5eb2174bd3.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> <br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif;">IBM’s gel (B), once heated, returns to its original state demonstrating<br />recyclable, remoldable properties. A typical gel (A) retains its form with heat. </span></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">A lab legacy</span></b><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">This gel discovery stems from work by IBM scientists Jim Hedrick and Jeannette Garcia two years ago, when they discovered how to synthesize <a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/articles/industrialpolymers.shtml">industrial polymers</a>. We applied this chemistry to our gels using computational chemistry – co-author and IBMer Gavin Jones simulated the affinity our organogels’ crosslinks with the different monomers we used, and showed that they bound in a similar way as the original molecules used by Jim and Jeannette. Our team’s rheology expert, Nancy Zhang, also measured the gel’s ability to flow, and its strength. Her data explained how to perceive the gel’s hardness and softness, and also proved that the gel could be remolded multiple times before losing its strength.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: black; font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Times; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: "Verdana",sans-serif; font-size: 13.0pt; line-height: 107%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Here’s Nancy explaining the gel’s ability to be molded multiple times:</span> </span></span></div></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j0n0K_a8c1o" width="500"></iframe></div>

ibm research almaden nanotechnology organogel polymer Discovered: high-temperature remoldable gels

Mareva Fevre, IBM Research-Almaden by Mareva Fevre, research post-doc at IBM Research-Almaden My team at IBM’s research lab in the Silicon...

Novel nanocomposites made of confined polymers

Discovered: high-temperature remoldable gels

Top IBM Research Stories of 2014