Development of Self -Healing Polymer Composites and Photoinduced Ring -Opening Metathesis Polymerization
In addition, the development and utility of these easily accessible ruthenium precatalyst, [(p-cymene)RuCl2]2 and tricyclohexylphosphine in performing Photoinduced Ring Opening Metathesis Polymerization (PROMP) is demonstrated. Polymerization of norbornene and dicyclopentadiene has been performed, showing the simplicity and ease of this procedure. The resulting poly(norbornene) shows high trans content (85%) of the ring opened double bonds. Crosslinked poly(dicyclopentadiene) can be generated at room temperature using 1% wt. of the precatalyst by irradiation of UV light at 254 nm. Initial results in the application of PROMP towards photopatterning and creation of microchannels for potential application in microfluidic devices is described.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign