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Published on: September 20, 2017
Mechanoluminescent Imaging of Osmotic Stress-Induced Damage in a Glassy Polymer Network
Jess M Clough1, Jasper van der Gucht2, Rint P Sijbesma1
1Laboratory of Macromolecular and Organic Chemistry and the Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology , P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
A chemiluminescent mechanophore, bis(adamantyl-1,2-dioxetane), is used to investigate the covalent bond scission resulting from the sorption of chloroform by glassy poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) networks. Bis(adamantyl)-1,2-dioxetane units incorporated as cross-linkers underwent mechanoluminescent scission, demonstrating that solvent ingress caused covalent bond scission. At higher cross-linking densities, the light emission took the form of hundreds of discrete bursts, widely varying in intensity, with each burst composed of 107-109 photons. Camera imaging indicated a relatively slow propagation of bursts through the material and permitted analysis of the spatial correlation between the discrete bond-breaking events. The implications of these observations for the mechanism of sorption and fracture are discussed.
