Macromolecular Rapid Communications最新文献

Polyamide 66 (PA66), as a widely utilized non-biodegradable plastic, constitutes a significant source of marine pollution. Current chemical recycling approaches often necessitate monomer purification, excessive use of depolymerization agents, and reliance on metal catalysts, leading to complex procedures and high costs. Therefore, directly converting waste polymers into high-value-added products by using them as raw materials holds substantial significance. Here, we successfully transformed end-of-life PA66 into a high-toughness antibacterial material via a one-pot method. End-of-life PA66 was employed as the polymer feedstock, and melt polycondensation was directly conducted using antibacterial monomers and bio-based long-chain dicarboxylic acids, resulting in the successful synthesis of a series of polyamide-based copolymers. The resultant material demonstrates outstanding mechanical performance, achieving a maximum tensile strength of 34.3 MPa and an elongation at break of up to 457.3% for a 0.5 mm-thick film. Furthermore, antibacterial assays confirmed that the material can exhibit nearly 100% antibacterial activity. Additionally, the material demonstrates excellent spinnability and processability, indicating strong potential for application in fabrics and films. This work proposes a practical strategy for the large-scale upcycling of end-of-life PA66, demonstrating significant potential for application in the polymer industry.

The effects of polymerization mechanism and polymerization composition on the structure and mechanical properties of gels synthesized by radical copolymerization of monomers and cross-linkers are investigated using a coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation. The effects of changing the polymerization mechanism from conventional free radical polymerization (FRP) to reversible deactivation radical polymerization (RDRP) depend on the polymerization composition. Due to the change in the number of loop structures depending on the concentrations and reaction rates, the cross-linking efficiency of the RDRP gel is higher at intermediate monomer concentrations than that of the FRP gel, but is lower at low monomer and low cross-linker concentrations and at high monomer concentrations. The influence of the polymerization mechanism on entanglement is almost independent of the polymerization composition, and the number of entanglements is lower in the RDRP gels than in the FRP gels. The stiffness and stretchability of the RDRP gels are lower than those of the FRP gels over a wide range of composition, but at high monomer concentrations, the RDRP gels, which have lower cross-linking efficiency, exhibit higher stretchability than the FRP gels.

In the era of deep integration between the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, flexible sensors, as a critical bridge connecting the physical world with digital information systems, have shown remarkable potential in core areas such as health monitoring, human-computer interaction, and intelligent manufacturing. Currently, there is a focus on further enhancing the core performance metrics of flexible sensors-their conductivity, mechanical adaptability, and sensitivity-while expanding their sensing dimensions and diversifying their application scenarios. To achieve these goals, the design and construction of high-performance conductive networks by utilizing nanomaterials and liquid metal (LM) and the optimization and selection of substrate materials have become a central research focus in this field. This review summarizes the advances in the structural design, fabrication, sensing mechanism, and application research of polymer-based flexible sensors. It systematically introduces the construction of nanomaterials and LM conductive networks and their influence mechanisms on the performance of flexible sensors. Furthermore, it summarizes the synergistic performance optimization strategies based on nanomaterials, LM, and polymer matrices. Finally, it explores the diverse applications of polymer-based flexible sensors across various fields, offering insights into their development prospects.

The electrical stability and biocompatibility of conducting polymer polypyrrole (PPy), combined with its low-cost synthesis, position PPy as a promising material for flexible electronics and bioelectronics. Despite recent progress, scalable PPy synthesis remains challenging due to limitations in traditional chemical and electrochemical polymerization methods. Herein, we introduce a deep eutectic solvent (DES)-mediated interface polymerization strategy that achieves template-free PPy synthesis without requiring additional oxidants or specialized equipment. This facile approach yields high-conductivity porous PPy with a record 98% conversion efficiency in less than 3 h at room temperature, surpassing the capabilities of conventional synthesis protocols. The resultant PPy exhibits a conductivity of 67 S/cm and a specific surface area comparable to PPy aerogels, enabling efficient ion/electron transport and outstanding specific capacitance for flexible supercapacitor applications. This environmentally friendly, operationally simple, and readily scalable method represents a significant advancement toward the commercialization of high-performance PPy materials.

Conductive hydrogels show great application prospects in the field of flexible electronic devices. Silk fibroin (SF), as a natural protein, has become an ideal candidate for flexible electronic devices due to its outstanding biocompatibility, tunable biodegradability, and excellent mechanical properties. The utilization of biocompatible and biosustainable SF offers promising candidates as alternatives to conventional flexible electronic device materials, especially for the next generation of biocompatible and biodegradable electronic devices. This review summarizes the research progress of SF-based conductive hydrogels from structural design to flexible electronic device applications. This review provides a comprehensive overview for the fabrication strategy of SF-based conductive hydrogels by summarizing conductive design, structural engineering, and cross-linking methods. It further outlines the applications of SF-based conductive hydrogels in a variety of fields, including bioelectronics, capacitors, batteries, biosensors, and wearable sensors. Finally, the perspectives on the current challenges and future directions in the development of SF-based conductive hydrogel electronics are presented.