Seminars

François Ganachaud (INSA-Lyon)
Thermoplastic silicone elastomer : new materials through old chemistries

Silicone elastomers come out as highly filled, chemically crosslinked materials showing high mechanical properties and long durability. Within the context of recycling and/or self-healing trends, silica-free, physically crosslinked formulations now pave the way in applications where transparency and reparability are important (e.g. electronic potting, dielectric elastomers). Silicone urea multiblock copolymers, that have long been studied academically, were for instance recently commercialized by Wacker. I propose in this talk to summarize recent advances in thermoplastic silicone elastomers (TPS) as described in the open literature and developed in our lab. Specifically, I will show how we systematically study these supramolecular materials, most of the time using well-known (and easy !) chemistry and various analytical/mechanical techniques. I will describe in particular zwiterionic and sulfone self-associating elastomers, that are original new materials.