CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Shape memory polymers (SMP) are promising materials for the design of technological devices with applications in diverse fields (biomedicine, sensing, robotics, microelectromechanics, etc). These materials have the ability to return to its original shape, from a deformed intermediate shape, by the action of an external stimulus. This stimulus can be an increase of temperature, the action a magnetic or an electric field, a change in pH, etc. Interest in SMP is based on lower cost, greater versatility in operating temperatures, higher breaking strains (and stresses) and improved strain fixing and recovery compared to those based on metal alloys (SMA, shape memory alloys). Epoxy networks have excellent mechanical properties, but only in a few recent works have been proposed as SMP (Rosseau and Xie, 2010). The activation temperature of these materials is the glass transition temperature, which can be modulated controlling curing, chemical composition, etc. (Weigel et al., 2009). However, its use as SMP requires excellent mechanical properties in the rubbery state (high breaking strain, good strain recovery, good toughness), not always easy to achieve with this type of polymers (Rosseau and Xie, 2010). On the other hand, the application of an external magnetic field to a SMP modified with magnetic nanoparticles produces an inductive heating that can achieve remote actuation (Mohr et al., 2006). The aim of this work is to synthesize shape memory nanocomposites by modification of epoxy networks with oleic acid and magnetite nanoparticles. The incorporation of oleic acid-coated magnetite nanoparticles (NPs) to these networks will produce the activation of the shape memory effect by application of an alternate magnetic field.