One reaction to make highly stretchable or extremely soft silicone elastomers from easily available materials

Pengpeng Hu, Jeppe Madsen, Anne Ladegaard Skov*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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Abstract

Highly stretchable, soft silicone elastomers are of great interest for the fabrication of stretchable, soft devices. However, there is a lack of available chemistries capable of efficiently preparing silicone elastomers with superior stretchability and softness. Here we show an easy curing reaction to prepare silicone elastomers, in which a platinum-catalyzed reaction of telechelic/multi-hydrosilane (Si-H) functional polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) in the presence of oxygen and water leads to slow crosslinking. This curing chemistry allows versatile tailoring of elastomer properties, which exceed their intrinsic limitations. Specifically, both highly stretchable silicone elastomers (maximum strain of 2800%) and extremely soft silicone elastomers (lowest shear modulus of 1.2 kPa) are prepared by creating highly entangled elastomers and bottle-brush elastomers from commercial precursor polymers, respectively.
Original languageEnglish
Article number370
JournalNature Communications
Volume13
Issue number1
Number of pages10
ISSN2041-1723
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2022

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