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Smart Soft Materials: From Design to Applications

A special issue of Materials (ISSN 1996-1944). This special issue belongs to the section "Smart Materials".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 September 2025 | Viewed by 1122

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Smart Materials Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710129, China
Interests: smart materials; electrorheological fluids; magnetorheological fluids; magnetic fluids; dielectric elastomer; electrical active polymer; conducting polymer; polyelectrolytes; poly(ionic liquid)s; mixed ionic–electronic conductors

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Smart materials can adaptively respond to an external stimulus and exhibit a useful physical or chemical change such as volume, mechanical stress, oxidization–deoxidization, and so on. The stimulus may be mechanical stress, temperature, light, moisture, pH, or an electric or magnetic field. The important characteristic of the response of smart materials is reversibility or tunability by controlling the strength of the stimulus. To obtain smart materials, a key aspect is to develop substances with highly physical and chemical stability and strong stimulus-responsive characteristics. In this regard, soft materials might be very suitable compounds for such purposes owing to their largely tunable ability compared to hard materials. In addition, self-healing properties can be easily induced in soft responsive materials. These novel properties allow for smart soft materials to be used to create novel technologies that can improve human life.

This Special Issue will cover the molecular design and preparation of smart soft materials and the versatile applications of smart soft materials in soft actuators, soft wearable devices, soft robotic, tissue engineering, artificial skin, biosensors, etc.

We would like to take this opportunity to invite contributions from scientists in the field who are encouraged to submit both original research papers and review articles, from basic aspects and future directions in the field.

Prof. Dr. Jianbo Yin
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • electrorheological materials
  • magnetorheological materials
  • liquid crystal elastomers
  • stimuli-responsive hydrogel
  • soft metamaterials
  • dielectric elastomers
  • shape memory polymers
  • ionogel
  • poly(ionic liquid)s

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

19 pages, 5490 KiB  
Article
Polyurethanes Made with Blends of Polycarbonates with Different Molecular Weights Showing Adequate Mechanical and Adhesion Properties and Fast Self-Healing at Room Temperature
by Yuliet Paez-Amieva, Noemí Mateo-Oliveras and José Miguel Martín-Martínez
Materials 2024, 17(22), 5532; https://doi.org/10.3390/ma17225532 - 13 Nov 2024
Viewed by 647
Abstract
Dynamic non-covalent interactions between polycarbonate soft segments have been proposed for explaining the intrinsic self-healing of polyurethanes synthesized with polycarbonate polyols (PUs) at 20 °C. However, these self-healing PUs showed insufficient mechanical properties, and their adhesion properties have not been explored yet. Different [...] Read more.
Dynamic non-covalent interactions between polycarbonate soft segments have been proposed for explaining the intrinsic self-healing of polyurethanes synthesized with polycarbonate polyols (PUs) at 20 °C. However, these self-healing PUs showed insufficient mechanical properties, and their adhesion properties have not been explored yet. Different PUs with self-healing at 20 °C, acceptable mechanical properties, and high shear strengths (similar to the highest ones reported in the literature) were synthesized by using blends of polycarbonate polyols of molecular weights 1000 and 2000 Da (CD1000 + CD2000). Their structural, thermal, rheological, mechanical, and adhesion (single lap-shear tests) properties were assessed. PUs with higher CD1000 polyol contents exhibited shorter self-healing times and dominant viscous properties due to the higher amount of free carbonate groups, significant carbonate–carbonate interactions, and low micro-phase separation. As the CD2000 polyol content in the PUs increased, slower kinetics and longer self-healing times and higher mechanical and adhesion properties were obtained due to a dominant rheological elastic behavior, soft segments with higher crystallinities, and greater micro-phase separation. All PUs synthesized with CD1000 + CD2000 blends exhibited a mixed phase due to interactions between polycarbonate soft segments of different lengths which favored the self-healing and mobility of the polymer chains, resulting in increased mechanical properties. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Smart Soft Materials: From Design to Applications)
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