Dynamically Crosslinked Nanostructured Elastomers – DYNACEL

With the increased dependency of our society on plastic-based materials, the recycling of plastics has become a crucial challenge. An interesting class of recyclable polymers is thermoplastic elastomers (TPE). These polymers are usually constituted of incompatible soft and hard blocks copolymers that can self-organize at the nanometric scale in various morphologies combining the properties of rubber at service temperature with the processability and recyclability of thermoplastics. However, this class similarly to thermoplastics suffer from their limited chemical, thermal and mechanical resistance and are often destined to low-grade applications. The improvement of these properties is of continuous interest for the scientific community considering the increasing demand for high performance yet recyclable materials. In this project, we propose to tackle this concern by developing an original and universal strategy to synthesise materials exhibiting improved resistance and high recyclability. To do so, associative dynamic chemistry present in “vitrimers” will be introduced in thermoplastic elastomers enabling the preparation of a large span of dynamically crosslinked nanostructured elastomers (DCNE). These thermoplastic elastomers will be synthetized through a new symmetrical RAFT (Reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer) agent enabling unprecedented control for ABA triblock copolymers.