Improving dielectric permittivity by incorporating PDMS-PEG block copolymer into PDMS network

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based elastomers are well-known to actuate with large strain mainly due to their low modulus and their non-conducting nature. On the other hand, polyethyleneglycols(PEG) are not stretchable but they have high permittivity and are conductive. Combination of the two polymers as a block copolymer depicts a possibility for substantial improvement of properties such as high permittivity and non-conductivity – if carefully designed. The objective is to synthesize PDMS-PEG multiblock copolymer assembling into different morphologies1 such as lamellar,cylinder, gyroid and spheres based on variation of volume fractions of PDMS and PEG. The synthesisis amended from Klasner et al.2 and Jukarainen et al.3 Variation in the ratio between the two constituents introduces distinctive properties in terms of dielectric permittivity and rheological behaviour. PDMS-PEG multiblock copolymer-based elastomers of different volume fractions exhibit high storage permittivity but they are conductive. By incorporating conductive PDMS7-PEG multiblock copolymers into a commercial non-conductive PDMS elastomer (MJK) creates apromising morphology which enhances storage permittivity (ε’) by 60% with 5wt% of PDMS7-PEGblock copolymer incorporated in the PDMS network.