Thermo-Responsive Shape Memory Polymers with Tunable Tg Based on an Epoxy Network Cured with a Mixture of Amines

A. B. LEONARDI; I. A. ZUCCHI; E. R. SOULÉ; C. E. HOPPE; L. A. FASCE; R. J. J. WILLIAMS

Congreso; XII Simposio Latinoamericano de Polímeros (SLAP 2010), X Congreso Iberoamericano de Polímeros (CIP 2010); 2010

Universidad Nacional Costa Rica

Thermo-responsive shape memory polymers (SMPs) are polymeric materials which have the capability of changing their shapes from a temporary shape to a permanent shape upon application of an external thermal stimulus (1). They attracted great attention of scientists and engineers due to the novel capacity to be manipulated into one desired shape and then recover to another desired shape when temperature varies from below to above the transition temperature. Shape memory provides great potential for applications in sensors, actuators, packaging, medical materials, etc. In this work, we study new SMPs based on an epoxy resin, crosslinked with a mixture of a bi-functional and tetra-functional amine, such that the glass transition temperature (Tg) can be tuned by modifying the composition.